Publication No. 3. 
326 
3 G7 
ay 1 



PERSECUTIONS OF THE 

GREEKS IN TURKEY SINCE 

THE BEGINNING OF THE 

EUROPEAN WAR 



TRANSLATED FROM OFFICIAL GREEK DOCUMENTS 
BY 

CARROLL N. BROWN, Ph. D. 
AND 

THEODORE P. ION, D.C.L. 



PUBLISHED FOR THB 
AMERICAN-HELLENIC SOCIETY 

105 WEST 40TH STREET, NEW fORK. N. Y. 
BY 

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS AMERICAN BRANCH 

85 WEST 82ND STREET. NEW YORK 

1918 



THE AMERICAN-HELLENIC SOCIETY 
GENERAL COUNCIL 

President 
Nicholas Murray Butler, Ph.D., LL.D. 

Vice-Presidents 
Charles W. Eliot, Ph.D., LL.D. 
Jacob G, Schurman, D.Sc, LL.D. 

Chairman Executive Committee Director 

Carroll N. Brown, Ph.D. Theodore P. Ion, J.D., D.C.L. 

General Secretary Treasurer 

Constantme Voicly, T.D, t t r>~i 

(National University of Greece) ^' ^' ^alvocoress. 



Edward D. Perry, Ph.D., LL.D. 
•James R. Wheeler, Ph.D., LL.D. 
Edward Robinson, LL.D., D.Litt. 
Andrew F. West, Ph.D., LL.D. 
William Kelly Prentice, Ph.D. 
George M. Whicher, D.Litt. 
F. Cunliffe-Owen 
Frederic R. Coudert, Ph.D. 
Petros Tatanis 
Very Rev. D. Callimachos, D.D. 

(National University of Greece) 
Thomas Dwight Goodell, Ph.D. 
William Nickerson Bates, Ph.D. 
Kendall K. Smith, Ph.D. 
William F. Harris 

(Chairman of Mass. Local Council) 
Herbert W. Smyth, Ph.D. 
George H. Chase, Ph.D. 
William S. Ferguson, Ph.D. 
Charles B. Gulick, Ph.D. 
L. D. Caskey, Ph.D. 



Died February 9, 1918. 



Mrs. C. E. Whitmore 
Rev. F. G. Peabody, D.D. 
Rev. W. H. Van Allen, D.D. 
Charles Peabody, Ph.D, 
C. N. Jackson, Ph.D. 
A. E, Phoutrides, Ph.D. 
Raphael Demos, Ph.D, 
C. R. Post, Ph.D. 
Joseph R. Taylor, A.M. 
Mrs. R. B. Perry 
P. J. Sachs 
Alex. Sedgwick 
Edward W, Forbes 
C. H. Fiske, Jr. • 
William H. Dunbar 
Miran Sevasly 
Anthony Benachi 
George H. Moses 

(Chairman of Washington, 
D, C, Local Council) 
Stephen M. Newman, D.D. 
Mitchell Carroll, Ph.D. 
John Constas, M.D. 



Executive Committee 



Carroll N. Brown 
Edward D. Perry 
George M. Whicher 
Theodore P. Ion 
Constantine Voicly 
L. J. Calvocoressi 
Petros Tatanis 
Edward Robinson 



F. Cunliffe-Owen 
Herbert W. Smyth 
Charles B. Gulick 
George H. Chase 
George H. Moses 
Stephen M, Newman 
John Constas 



CENTRAL OFFICE. 105 West 40th Street, 
Tilden BuOding, New York City, N, Y. 



PERSECUTIONS OF THE 

GREEKS IN TURKEY SINCE 

THE BEGINNING OF THE 

EUROPEAN WAR 



TRANSLATED FROM OFFICIAL GREEK DOCUMENTS 
BY 

CARROLL N. BROWN, Ph. D. 

AND 

THEODORE P. ION, D.C.L. 



PUBLISHED FOR THE 
AMERICAN-HELLENIC SOCIETY 

105 WEST 40th street, NEW YORK. N. Y. 
BY 

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS AMERICAN BRANCH 

35 WEST 32nd STREET, NEW YORK 

1918 



CONTENTS 



Introduction 



PAGE 
V 



PART I 



II. 
III. 



IV. 
V. 



Work Preparatory to the Extermination of the Greek 
Populations in Turkey 

4PTER 

I. The abolition of ecclesiastical and other f)rivileges of 
the Greek Church ... 

1. Education ..... 

2. Wills and Testaments . 

3. Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction . 

4. Greek Communities in Turkish Cities 
Compulsory Enlistment of Christians . 

Requisitions and Contributions 

1. Requisitions ..... 

2. Contributions 
Conversions to Mohammedanism . 
Crimes and acts of violence against the Greeks 

Statistical table of the crimes which have been 
committed against the Greeks 
Smyrna . 
Cydonia (Aivali) 
Vourla 
Attalia 

Constantinople 
Thrace . 



1 

3 
4i 
5 

7 
14. 

15 
19 

22 

28 
28 
31 
32 
33 
34) 
35 



PART II 

Deportations En Masse 

I. Dardanelles, GallipoH, Marmora, Kirk-Kilisse 

II. Trebizond 

III. Kerasounda 

IV. Amissos (Samsoun) 



40 
45 

47 
48 



CONTENTS 

CBAPTER PAGE 

V. Cydonia (Aivali) 56 

VI. Condition of the deported people .... GO 

VII. Statistics of deportations G4 

Statistical table of the deported Greek popu- 
lations ........ 64) 

Districts of Gallipoli, Broussa, Pro- 
pontis (Marmora) . . . .64) 

Districts of Bouyoukdere, Dardanelles, 
Ismid (Nicomedia), Cyzikos, Myri- 
ophytos, Kadikioi (Chalcedon), Kirk- 
Kilisse ....... 65 

Districts of Heraklia, Didj'moticho, 
Smyrna, C^'donia (Aivali), Trebi- 

zond 66 

District of Kerasounda . . .67 

District of Samsoun .... 68 

Appendix A 69 

Appendix B 70 



INTRODUCTION 

The persecutions of the Greeks in Turkey, since 
the declaration of the European war, are nothing but the 
continuation of the program put into operation by the 
Young Turks in the year 1913, with the object of anni- 
hilating Hellenism. 

In order that those who are ignorant of conditions m 
Turkey may understand the objects and the main- 
springs of these persecutions, as well as the methods by 
which the uprooting of Hellenism in the territories sub- 
ject to Turkey was sought, it is necessary, before nar- 
rating the persecutions that began with the last months 
of 1914, to review briefly the occurrences of the preced- 
ing period. There will thus be no room for doubt that 
we have here to do with an intensive continuation of a 
program which had as its object the annihilation of 
Hellenism in Turkey. 

Anyone who looks into the events that followed the 
restoration of constitutional government in Turkey be- 
comes convinced that the natural course of history was 
not at that time to be changed simply by the banishing 
of a tyrant and the appearance of a supposedly parha- 
mentary government. 

A study of the first years of the new government 
shows that the Young Turks had not the slightest inten- 
tion of modifying the Turkish system of government, 
but really entered upon this peaceful revolution in order 

* This account of Turkish outrages in Asia Minor, to which it has seemed 
proper to add two other documents giving confirmatory facts and details, has 
been translated from a publication of the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 
The barbarous treatment of the subject Greeks which has been cold-bloodedly 
encouraged if not directly instigated bv German officials in Turkey, can only 
be compared with that accorded the Armenians. The tale of the sufferings of 
these innocent and helpless men, women and children should certainly arouse 
the civilized nations of the world to take the power to commit such atrocities 
out of the hands of the Turks irrevocably and forever. 

— The Translators. 



vi INTRODUCTION 

that they might forestall the intervention of the Great 
Powers, and might thus be able to accomphsh their pro- 
gram, in accordance with which Turkey was to be 
changed from an Empire of several nations into a single 
National Empire, unified and compact. It is in this 
scheme of the Young Turks, by which a Turkey politi- 
cally and economically independent and nationally united 
was to be created, that we must seek to account for the 
dangers to which, from the establishment of the constitu- 
tion, the nationalities living under Turkey were sub- 
jected. 

In order to bring about the realization of the schemes 
of the Young Turks it was necessary that free institu- 
tions should be adopted so that the sympathy of the 
Christian nationalities and of the Great Powers might 
be secured for the new government, and this in spite 
of the fact that the great majority of the Turkish people 
was not ripe for the reception of such institutions. 

Naturally, therefore, and without any difficulty those 
young Turks who were directing affairs almost immedi- 
ately returned to the Turkish custom of managing things 
through the use of force, the only available means by 
which they could maintain their supremacy over the 
subject peoples. 

This tendency, which showed itself at once in active 
operation, is clearly set forth by Mr. Rene Pinon in his 
treatise " Europe and the Young Turks." 

" The theories with regard to equahty," he says (p. 
123), "serve now only as a veil for European eyes and 
as a fair pretext for depriving the Christians of those 
old ' privileges ' which heretofore had compensated them 
for their position of inequality with the Turks; as a 
pretext, that is, for doing away with their courts of 
special jurisdiction, for destroying their national organi- 
zations, for closing their schools and for hindering the 
cultural development of the non-Turkish populations." 
This active policy of the Young Turks of the Mussulman 



INTRODUCTION vii 

majority which strove to bring about their more complete 
domination was immediately perceptible in its effects 
upon the Christian elements of the population and in 
particular upon the Greek element, which, as being 
numerically larger and more advanced in culture than 
the others was at once subjected to the most serious 
blows. Furthermore, it was against the Greeks that the 
Young Turks first turned. The immediate result of this 
movement was that the various Christian nationalities in 
Turkey combined in order to defend their lives and 
property. 

The war that followed in 1912 encouraged the belief 
for a time that through the defeat of the Turks the 
danger that threatened the existence of the Christian 
nationalities in Turkey had been dispelled. Unfortu- 
nately this turned out to be a vain hope. 

The results of the Balkan war were a serious blow to 
the Central Empires and destroyed for once and all the 
dream of Austrian possession of Saloniki. The tradi- 
tional anti-Hellenic policy of this power from now on 
left no stone unturned in order to neutralize the effects 
of the victorious war by which Greece had been enlarged, 
and rendered competent through the prestige of her 
victory, to defend vigorously and effectively those of her 
sons that were still left beneath the yoke of Turkey. 
Austria, aided by Germany, the constant enemy of all 
Greek progress which had the slightest tendency to 
interfere with her prospects in Asia Minor, succeeded in 
dissolving the Balkan alliance with the results that are 
now known to all. 

A consequence of this was the predominance once more 
of the Young Turk regime, which now, under the lead 
of Enver Bey, who became the blind tool of the Ger- 
mans, was fully subjected to Germany. In this new 
manifestation the Young Turk party, encouraged by its 
success in having so easily recovered the city of Ad- 
rianople, considered the time propitious for a return to 



viii INTRODUCTION 

its old ideas. With a view to this it decided upon the 
complete annihilation of the Greek element in Turkey, 
so as first to make Thrace a purely Mohammedan prov- 
ince, under the pretext of thus securing the safety of 
Constantinople, and second to establish a united and 
independent Mohammedan Empire. 

If we reflect that the Young Turks, at the time when 
they had been at the zenith of their power, though then 
free from all European intervention, had not dared to 
enter upon a sudden application of their nationalistic 
policy but had only done this with a certain measure of 
self-restraint, the question arises how they came to enter 
upon such a decisive course on the very morrow of a war 
that had proved destructive for them. This fact is ex- 
plained, however, when we take into account that at that 
time they had been held in check by the fear of the de- 
struction of their whole work through the possible inter- 
vention of Europe, to which they did not wish to offer 
any excuse for interference in their internal affairs, while 
at this later time they had as co-operators and co-ad jutors, 
first the Bulgarians, who were endeavoring even in their 
defeat to inflict through this activity a fatal blow to 
Greece, and secondly, what was even more important, 
the Germans whose obvious interest consisted in smiting 
Hellenism, for the Greeks have always constituted and 
to-day constitute a serious impediment to Germany's 
commercial and cultural predominance in the East. All 
this is confirmed by the whole course of the persecutions, 
as narrated below. 

Just at the time when the life of the subject Greeks 
bade fair to be endurable, under the pretext of establish- 
ing Mussulman immigrants in Asia Minor and of secur- 
ing the Asiatic littoral, over opposite the disputed 
islands of Chios and Mitylene, but actually in order to 
apply the Turks' scheme of a nationalization of Turkey 
that should make it purely and simply Mohammedan, a 
cruel and systematic persecution was begun which de- 



INTRODUCTION ix 

prived about 400,000 Greeks of their homes and prop- 
erty, and compelled them, naked and stripped of their all, 
to seek refuge in Greece. This inhuman persecution, 
even the recollection of which inspires horror in all, 
proceeded without interruption up to the declaration of 
the European War. 

The accession of Turkey to the alhance of the Cen- 
tral Empires and her participation in the war marked 
the beginning of the second period of the persecutions 
of Hellenism in Turkey, persecutions that were incom- 
parably fiercer and more effective than the first. This 
period definitively reveals those who were morally guilty 
of the persecution. Not for a moment did these in- 
stigators relax their evil and powerful influence upon the 
executors of the crimes against the Greeks. 

The difference between these two periods is great. 

During the first there was a general persecution which 
might perhaps destroy whole Greek communities, but 
which did not bring with it the complete and irretriev- 
able ruin of the Greek race, since it, at any rate, per- 
mitted those persecuted to save themselves by flight. In 
the period dating from the participation of Turkey in 
the war, the persecution assailed the very existence of 
Hellenism in Turkey. 

It is however necessary to call attention to another 
difference between these two periods, a difference un- 
fortunately that reflects upon the attitude of official 
Greece. During the first period the official Greek gov- 
ernment appears everywhere and always defending the 
Greeks persecuted in Turkey and acting with all its 
strength in order to regulate the question of the refugees 
so as to save Hellenism in Turkey. During the second 
period, however, those directing things in Greece, basing 
their much extolled policy of neutrality, in ironical dis- 
regard of the facts, on the fantastic and chimerical hope 
of saving Hellenism in Turkey by this pohcy, stood by, 
regarded by those who were ignorant of what was going 



X INTRODUCTION 

on as merely passive spectators, while in the eyes of those 
who closely followed affairs in Turkey and were cog- 
nizant of the wire-pulhng behind the scenes in Germany, 
they were neither more nor less than abettors of the 
murderers and assassins of our kinsmen in Asia. 

One who investigates with some attention the second 
period of the persecutions, from its very start discovers 
in its every manifestation German participation and 
activity. The Turk is a connoisseur in crime ; he can kill, 
he can debauch, but he is incapable of formulating a 
really scientific system by which the foundations of a 
nation may be undermined, and under which justificatory 
reasons for his acts may be found. His cunning does 
not reach such a point of inventiveness as that exhibited 
during this period. 

Even in the persecutions of 1913-14, the methods of 
which evidenced the guilt of the Ottoman Government, 
German activity appears timidly operative behind the 
scenes, and although Germany was apparently at that 
time acting in order to forward the Young Turk schemes, 
which it thus flattered and adopted, it was, as a matter of 
fact, working in its own behalf. There are very many 
proofs of this German guilt. 

As to the persecutions that took place before the war, 
German guilt is revealed by the interview which took 
place in April, 1914, between the Greek Charge d'Af- 
faires, J. Dragoumis, and the German Minister of For- 
eign Affairs, Von Jagow (Report of the 7th of April, 
1914, No. 643, Ministerial Archives, No. 10907). Ac- 
cording to this report the latter admits the persecutions 
and the Turkish outrages, but, forgetting himself, for 
the moment, and his position, he becomes the advocate 
of the Turks and attempts to justify the persecutions by 
using the arguments advanced by the Young Turks with 
the object of conceahng their crimes; first that every 
Greek in Turkey is an apostle of Pan-Hellenism, as 
though forsooth, the attempt on the part of the Greeks 



INTRODUCTION xi 

to preserve their nationalitj^ was a cause that justified 
their persecution, and secondly, that the question of the 
islands, the final settlement of which the Young Turks 
sought, was most serious for the safety of the coasts of 

Asia Minor. 

This pro-Turkish German policy went even further. 
It forbade the publication in the German press of events 
which were taking place in Thrace to the disadvantage of 
Hellenism. A telegram of the 10th of April, 1914, from 
Mr. J. Dragoumis to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs 
says: "It is impossible to have accepted for publication 
in the newspapers news relative to matters in Thrace. 
A general order has been issued that we must not dis- 
please the Turks." Even Von Jagow himself, further- 
more, confessing to the Greek Ambassador in Berlin, Mr. 
Theotokis, the critical state of affairs, regarded this as a 
consequence of Mussulman fanaticism which had been 
aroused on account of what had happened to its disad- 
vantage, and he maintained further that this fanaticism 
was fostered by Russia from a Pan-Slav motive with the 
object of weakening the (Ecumenical Patriarchate, so 
that it would necessarily later become a subservient tool 
of the Russian policy. (Telegram of the Greek Minister 
in Berlin, Mr. Theotokis, to the Minister of Foreign Af- 
fairs, Mr. Streit, of May 26, 1914. Ministerial Archives, 
No. 998.) 

Even the German Emperor, in order to conceal the 
truth, did not hesitate to say to the same Minister that 
only subordinate officials of the Turkish government 
were responsible for the state of affairs, and not the gov- 
ernment itself, which was on the contrary, so he declares, 
really endeavoring to put an end to the situation which 
had arisen. But unfortunately for the Kaiser and his 
Minister Von Jagow, the second persecution came on 
apace, in the course of which the guilty ones were dis- 
covered. (Telegram of the 29th of May, 1914, from 
Mr. Theotokis, the Greek Minister in Berhn, to Mr. 



xii INTRODUCTION 

Streit, the Minister of Foreign Affairs. jNIinisterial 
Archives, No. 1050.) 

The actual occurrences leave no doubt as to the guilt 
of Germany, since it is known that throughout the whole 
East there were distributed in April, 1915, and even 
earlier, through the agency of the Deutsche Palestina 
Bank circular notices in Turkish, through which the 
fanaticism of the Mussulmans was aroused, and hatred 
of the Christians and breaking of all business relations 
with them was encouraged. A French translation of this 
circular fell into the hands of the Greek consul in Beirut, 
who describes the indignation against the Germans which 
its distribution produced in the Christian populations 
of the place. It is entitled " Manifeste general a tons les 
adeptes de 1' Islamisme, public par le Comite de la 
Defense Nationale au siege du Califat, en 1' annee 
1333." 

The Germans in June, 1915, were aware of the deci- 
sions of the Young Turk committee, adopted in the pres- 
ence of the Governor of Adrianople and the Bulgarians 
Kaltsef and Toufexief, and looking toward the forma- 
tion of closer relations with the Bulgarians as well as 
toward the persecution of the Greek element. These 
were as follows: 

1). Establishment of a Turko-Bulgarian commercial 
alliance, complementary to the Turko-Bulgarian Com- 
mittee. 

2). Taking the commerce of the East out of Greek 
hands. 

3). Estabhshment in the East of Turkish commercial 
agencies for the importation and exportation of goods 
exclusively through Mussulman hands, the Turks being 
expected to stop all dealings with Greeks. 

4). Limitation of the privileges of the Patriarchate 
and of his ecclesiastic jurisdiction; weddings, baptisms, 
etc., were to be recorded with the Iman (Mohammedan 
priest). 



INTRODUCTION xiii 

5). Restriction of instruction in the Greek language 
and its total abandonment in the future. 

6 ) . The Turkification of the Greek element by force, 
through the establishment of mixed communities, so con- 
stituted as always to have a preponderance of Mussul- 
man men and of Greek women, with a view to compelhng 
mixed marriages. 

Certainly it is utterly incredible that the Central 
Powers were unable to impose upon the Turks a different 
pohcy toward the Greeks, though this, in an attempt 
to conceal the truth, is maintained by the German Lep- 
sius, who was sent to Constantinople in July, 1915, on a 
special mission. Even he, however, acknowledges most 
cold-bloodedly that the anti-Hellenic and anti-Armenian 
persecutions were two phases of one and the same pro- 
gram, the annihilation of the Christian element in Turkey, 
which would thus be transformed into a purely Mussul- 
man Empire. (Report of the Greek Embassy in Con- 
stantinople, No. 4415 of the 31st of July, 1915. Minis- 
terial Archives, No. 8477.) 

The Minister of Austria in Constantinople, in June, 
1915, tried to persuade the Greek Charge d' Affaires in 
that city that the intervention of the Central Powers in 
the matter was very difficult, inasmuch as Turkey re- 
garded the persecutions as a purely internal affair. 

The value of these attempts at self -justification is 
adequately characterized by the following extract of an 
official report of Mr. Gryparis, Minister of Greece in 
Vienna, dated September 13th, 1915 (Ministerial 
Archives, No. 1599), on the occasion of taking steps 
before Baron Burian to put a stop to the persecutions: 
" What is the use, anyway, of formal remonstrances to 
the Sublime Porte, or of appeals to the tw^o empires to 
intervene w^ith her? Is it not perfectly evident that, as 
things are now in Turkey, the Grand Vizier is only 
nominally Grand Vizier, the government being really in 
the hands of Enver and Talaat, whose ideas and opinions 



xiv INTRODUCTION 

about Hellenism in Turkey are only too well known, 
and that, further, the decisions about banishing to the 
interior the Greek populations of the seacoast, were taken 
only after coming to an understanding with the German 
staff in Constantinople." 

The truth of this conception is confirmed by a tele- 
gram of Mr. Kallerges, the Greek Minister in Constan- 
tinople, to Mr. Zalocostas, the Minister of Foreign Af- 
fairs, dated March 28, 1917 (Ministerial Archives, No. 
2338). According to this the Minister of Germany, 
Count von Metternich, was recalled as a result of the 
direct intervention with the Kaiser of Enver Pasha 
and the German military circles in Constantinople, be- 
cause of his interceding in behalf of the Christians, thus 
touching the pride of the Turks, as well as failing to 
subserve German interests. 

No doubt remained as to the guilt of Germany after 
the evacuation of Cydonia (Aivah). The Grand' Vizier 
acknowledged to the Greek Minister in Constantinople 
that the transfer of the Greek population was due to the 
action of the commander of the 5th Corps, Commander- 
in-Chief Liman von Sanders. The Ottoman government 
originally objected to this and only yielded to the threat 
of the Commander-in-Chief, who declared that only on 
this basis could he assume responsibility for the safety of 
the army. Even the Ambassador of Germany tried to 
persuade the said Commander-in-Chief, for reasons of 
political necessity, not to insist on his decision but the 
latter was unwilling to yield, claiming that in time of war 
mihtary necessity takes precedence over pohtical, and 
that the great German Council of War, before which he 
had set forth in detail the state of affairs, had already 
given its consent. 

What were these military necessities? Pretexts of 
the danger of espionage by the people of Cydonia, who 
had for a year and more been subjected to the strictest 
blockade, were advanced as sufficient to justify the de- 



INTRODUCTION xv 

struction of this bulwark of Hellenism and its supplant- 
ing in this fertile country, in commerce and other activi- 
ties, by Germans and Austrians. 

The scheme of the Young Turks, completed and per- 
fected, was adopted by the Germans and so the blind 
passion of the Turks and the egotistical aims of the 
Germans were satisfied. 

' Thus those morally guilty and those actually guilty 
were united in their common struggle to deal a deadly 
blow to Hellenism in Turkey, the annihilation of which 
they had vowed to complete. 

And, in truth, the diabolical nature of the scheme 
through which they sought the destruction of the Greek 
element in Turkey and its total uprooting, at this period 
in particular, is astounding. 

In order to understand the vastness of the destruction 
so satanically conceived, w^e must investigate as closely 
as possible all the means that were used. They are the 
following: First, abolishment of the special privileges; 
second, drafting Christians into the army; third, taxation 
and commandeering of Greek property; fourth, Turki- 
fication; fifth, assassination and violence against indi- 
viduals. 

In all these ways the preparatory work for the exter- 
mination of Hellenism on a broad scale was undertaken. 

The examination of these various methods will be the 
object of the first part of the present study. In the 
second part there will be treated a sixth means of totally 
exterminating Hellenism, i.e., the extensive deportations 
of the Greek population on the feigned ground of mili- 
tary necessity. 



PART I 

WORK PREPARATORY TO THE EXTERMI- 
NATION OF THE GREEK POPULATIONS 
IN TURKEY 



CHAPTER I 

THE ABOLITION OF ECCLESIASTICAL 

AND OTHER PRIVILEGES OF THE 

GREEKS IN TURKEY 

The Turco-Germans attempted first to shake the very 
foundations of enslaved Hellenism. They knew that 
Hellenism had been saved in its days of dark and harsh 
slavery, owing to the existence of these ecclesiastical and 
other privileges granted to it, by virtue of which alone 
the Greek language and the sacred traditions of the race 
had been preserved. They decided therefore immedi- 
ately to attack these privileges which they mistakenly 
regarded as a complement to the Turkish capitulations. 
The privileges which the Christians enjoyed differ in 
this particular from the capitulations, inasmuch as they 
constitute a sacred obligation on the part of the con- 
queror towards the conquered on account of the differ- 
ence of religion, an obligation which all the civihzed 
Christian nations recognize toward the Mussulmans in 
those countries under their control in which the Mussul- 
man element exists in large numbers, such as Algeria, 
Tunis, India, Caucasus, etc. Germans and Turks at- 
tempted to abohsh this privilege gradually because they 



2 PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 

knew that only thus could they realize an assimilation of 
the Greek element to the Mussulman element, thus mak- 
ing the country completely Turkish. 

I. Education 

In carrying out their program, they first assailed the 
educational system of the Greeks. 

On the basis of the privileges, the education of the 
Greeks in Turkey was in the hands of the (Ecumenical 
Patriarchate and was directed by it, a fact formally 
recognized by the Circular of the Turkish Prime Minis- 
ter of January 22nd, 1891. 

The Circular, in treating of education, reads as 
follows : 

"The programs of the schools shall be drawn up or 
confirmed by the Patriarchate and the Metropoles,* like- 
wise the diplomas and certificates of the teachers, both 
male and female, shall be confirmed by the same. Since 
these must also be known to the Government, when the 
inspector or the director of public education, while in- 
vestigating instruction in the schools, shall observe some 
lesson improperly taught, or shall find some teacher that 
is not duly provided with a certificate, the Ministry of 
Education in Constantinople, and the Local Govern- 
ment in the provinces, respectively, acting in concert with 
the Metropoles, shall come to an agreement, and thus 
through their agency such lessons shall be stopped and 
such teachers, unprovided with certificates, shall be re- 
placed." 

Through a temporary law which was applied in July, 
1915, this privilege was abolished, since by Article VII 
of this law the schools established and supported by com- 
munities and associations were regarded as ' state insti- 
tutions.' Thus all the schools of the Greek communities 
in Turkey were put on an equahty with the peculiarly 
Turkish schools and were made subject to the control of 

* A kind of superior bishop. 



PERSECUTIOXS OF THE GREEKS 3 

the Turkish Government and rendered immediately de- 
pendent upon the Ministry of Education. 

A consequence of this law was that the following 
demands were made upon the Metropoles and the Pa- 
triarchate: First, that the teaching of the Turkish lan- 
guage in the Greek schools should be imposed in equal 
mea'sure with the teaching of Greek, and that it should 
be introduced into the girls' schools as well. Second, 
that geography and history should be taught in Turkish, 
Third, that copies of the schedules and programs of the 
Greek schools should be submitted to the Turkish inspec- 
tors and that statistical tables of the schools should 
be formed on the basis of the government programs. 
Fourth, that the teaching of the names of places, cities, 
mountains, etc., in Turkey should be in the forms of- 
ficially accepted by the Government, i.e., that Constanti- 
nople should be called Stamboul, that the Dardanelles 
should be called Tsanakale, etc. Fifth, that in future 
the proper authorities to whom the teachers shall appeal 
on questions of teaching or other subjects connected 
therewith, should no longer be the Patriarchate and the 
Metropoles but the directors of the communal and pri- 
vate schools. 

//. Wills and Testaments 

Not satisfied with this fatal blow to Greek education, 
the violation of other privileges of the Patriarchate was 
aimed at as well. According to the above mentioned 
Circular of 1891 every difference between heirs or be- 
tween the guardian of minors and his wards, as well as 
every dispute as to the legitimacy and authenticity of a 
will was to be decided by the mixed Counsel of the Patri- 
archate or of the Metropoles. This right was now abol- 
ished even as regards secret wills. As a result of this, after 
the death of a Mr. Rizou, a Greek, the Sheikhoulislamate * 
assumed jurisdiction of his will and rendered a decision 

* The highest Mohammedan religious court and expounder of Mohammedan 
law. 



4 PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 

which was published in the Official Journal although the 
will in question, duly drawn up by an official act of a 
notary public, bore the ratification of the Patriarchate 
and was prepared in strict accord with legal forms. This 
fact undoubtedly indicates the prevailing tendency to 
take away from the ecclesiastical authorities the right 
to draw up wills. 

III. Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction 

Apart from this, in the question of proceedings against 
the Clergy, there was abolished the privilege which they 
had long enjoyed with regard to being summoned before 
the Turkish court, imprisoned, etc., and their direct 
arrest and imprisonment, in the common jails, without 
the knowledge of the proper ecclesiastical authorities was 
now legitimized. There are very many cases where this 
was done. Among them, the imprisomiient for nine 
months of the Archivist of the Patriarchate, the Archi- 
mandrite Alexander; that of the Abbot of the Sacred 
Monastery of St. George in Princes Island; that of 
the priests of the depopulated villages of Callicratia, 
Tsando, Phanaraki, in the region of Metra, etc. Besides 
this, there was taken away from the ecclesiastic courts 
the right of issuing decisions for temporaiy alimony on 
the ground that the ecclesiastic courts were on a par with 
the Mohammedan religious courts. 

Furthermore, with the intention of lessening the au- 
thority and influence of the Patriarchate, the Turks paid 
no attention to the Patriarch's intervention in behalf of 
the Christians who were compelled to become Moham- 
medans. Contrary to the recognized rights of the Patri- 
archate they began, from 1915 on, to deny all right of 
intervention in the case of these questions, as is proven 
by an official note dated the 28th of July, 1915. Ac- 
cording to this note, which was sent because the Patri- 
archate had intervened in belialf of the thirteen-year-old 
girl Sultana Nicolaou of Chrysopolis in Chalcedon, who 



PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 5 

had been forcibly abducted by a Turk from the house of 
her father, the Ministry through the appropriate bureau 
superintendent declared to the Patriarchate: " The affair 
concerns exclusively the parents involved, who ought to 
appeal directly to the Turkish authorities; consequently 
the mediation of the Patriarchate is superfluous." The 
same course was followed with regard to the abduction 
of the sixteen-year-old Helen Photiou Catmna, who lived 
in the Tatavla quarter of Constantinople. A similar 
thing happened when the Patriarchate complained of the 
expatriation of the Greeks of Coutali and Marmora; 
Talaat Pasha himself * in his reply declared : " The reli- 
gious authorities are not permitted to intervene in ques- 
tions foreign to their jurisdiction but must limit them- 
selves solely to their religious duties." A similar 
communication of the Patriarchate touching on the per- 
secutions was returned in June, 1915, by the Ministry of 
Justice with the declaration " The Patriarchate has no 
business to transmit communications about such ques- 
tions.'* 

IF, Greek Cominunities in Turkish Cities 

Along with the privileges of the Patriarchate there 
were abolished also the rights of the Christian com- 
munities. The election of the Councilors (a board of 
Selectmen) had always been their inalienable right. Be- 
ginning with the year 1915 the government in Constan- 
tinople began to select these councilors as, for example, 
in the parishes of Evangelistria, Vlanga, Xerokrene, etc. 
At the same time under various pretexts the confisca- 
tion of the property of the Greek communities, the Holy 
Monasteries and other national establishments began. 
This is confirmed by an official report of the Greek 
Ministry in Constantinople dated the 14th of April, 
1916 (Ministerial Archives, No. 1188), which runs as 
follows : 

* The present Turkish Frime Minister. 



6 PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 

" The Ministerial Council on the occasion of a dispute 
about a piece of property of the Patriarchate of Jeru- 
salem in the Island of Chalke has decided to declare 
public property all the monastic possessions on the 
Island of Chalke which lie outside of the enclosure of 
the Monasteries, and in accordance with this decision the 
proper economical ephor has taken possession of these." 

In addition to this, the tendency of the Germano- 
Turks to confiscate the national property of the Greeks 
is shown by the forced sale of the orphan asylum on 
Princes Island for £3,000 instead of £30,000, its actual 
value; the forcible seizure of the trade school in Chalke, 
and in particular the decision of the Ministerial Council 
taken in March, 1916, according to which the rights of 
ownership of the Monasteries are recognized only as 
covering the ground comprised within the walls sur- 
rounding them, while all the property outside of the 
walls which is claimed by them, whether this be forest 
land or land of other nature, is regarded as public 
property owned by the State. The application of such 
a decision completely stripping the Patriarchate, the 
Greek communities and the monasteries of their prop- 
erty, which reached a total value of many million pounds, 
could only have been stopped if the Greek Government 
had threatened, as a retaliatory measure, to confiscate 
the property belonging to the Turkish religious institu- 
tions in Greece. Unfortunately, it was the epoch at 
which, far from appreciating the importance of such a 
loss of wealth, Greece seemed rather to be seeking to 
make amends, as for instance in that famous decision 
about the surrender of some disputed Turkish posses- 
sions, of a value of twenty million drachmas and more. 



CHAPTER II 

COMPULSORY ENLISTMENT OF 
CHRISTIANS 

In connection with these measures which shook to its 
foundations the very existence of enslaved Hellenism, its 
annihilation was further attempted through military con- 
scription. Such diabohcal inventiveness was used to this 
end that conscription served as a safe means first, to ruin 
the Greeks as individuals from the point of view of 
material wealth and, secondly (and this may be called its 
real object), to reduce their numbers to the lowest pos- 
sible terms. In order that this may be understood we 
must know all the historical developments of Greek con- 
scription in Turkey. 

Under the absolutist regime, as is well known, the 
Christians in Turkey had been exempted from military 
obligations but instead of this they had been obliged to 
pay a yearly war tax. At the time of the restitution of 
the Constitution, they were by law regarded as obhged 
to render military service up to the age of thirty-one, 
men over thirty-one being regarded as exempt, since 
they had already paid their exemption fee. 

After the participation of Turkey in the war, these 
men were, however, through legal enactment, regarded 
as obliged to render military service, and this included 
even those up to forty-eight years of age, but with the 
difference that those who were in the reserve were re- 
leased upon payment of £45 as an exemption fee. The 
object of this was clear. Men that were not accus- 
tomed to military life would surely prefer to obtain a 
release by the payment of this fee. There was there- 
fore through this conscription an attempt made to bleed 

7 



8 PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 

financially even those over whom the Turkish govern- 
ment had legally no right. 

But most of those thus conscripted were not in a posi- 
tion to pay the military exemption fee. The Turks be- 
thought themselves, therefore, of subjecting the Greeks 
who came into the ranks of the army to such deprivations 
and hardships as to compel them to dispose of their small 
properties in order to pay the exemption fee and obtain 
their release, or else not to enter the service at all, in 
which case they were proclaimed deserters. In this way, 
the actual object of the conscription, i.e., the destruction 
of Hellenism, was attained. 

In order to succeed more fully in this, they estab- 
lished by law the system of the so-called battalions of 
laborers into which the Christians were drafted on the 
ground that they could not be trusted to serve under 
arms. These divisions of laborers were for the most part 
sent into the interior of Asia Minor in order to build 
public roads, to construct Mussulman houses, to work 
in quarries and to cultivate the fields of the Turkish 
immigrants and they were, in general, subjected to 
enforced labor of various kinds. What the situation of 
these unfortunate men was like is confirmed by various 
official reports, some extracts of which are here pre- 
sented by way of proof. 

Thus a report from the consular office in Bryoulla of 
August 15, 1915, Number 319 (Ministerial Archives No. 
11536) describes their condition as follows: "One of the 
causes of the wretchedness of the Greeks in Turkey is, 
as is well known, the drafting of Christians into the army. 
For those serving in the army are subjected to such pri- 
vation and hardship, and their condition, differing not a 
whit from that of those condemned to hard labor in the 
galleys, is so miserable, that in spite of all the drastic 
efforts of the authorities no one of the Greeks here has 
come forward to enlist voluntarily." 

Another report of the Greek Legation in Constanti- 



PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 9 

nople, dated July 13, 1915, Number 4099 ( Ministerical 
Archives, No. 7981) is as follows: " The condition of the 
Christian soldiers is frightful. They are in danger of 
dying of starvation, since only a modicum of food is 
given them. Because, forsooth, of lack of confidence in 
the Christians, orders have been issued for the formation 
of labor battalions to be used in the construction of roads, 
etc. To the 3,000 Christians in Tyroloe is given half 
a sea-biscuit daily. The Greek soldiers of Malgara, 
working in a quarry, lived for four days on vegetables 
alone. They are often used by the Turks for private 
work." 

Another report of the Greek consul in Iconium dated 
March 7, 1917, which reached the Ministry of Foreign 
Affairs on the 18th of September, 1917 (Ministerial 
Archives, No. 7027) states: "That which seriously 
injures and gradually but certainly exterminates the 
Greeks in Turkey is the law establishing labor battalions 
composed exclusively of Christians. As a result of this 
law these unfortunate men, on being drafted into these 
battalions are distributed throughout the interior of the 
empire, from the coasts of Asia Minor and the Black Sea 
to Bagdad, the Caucasus, Mesopotamia and Egypt, some 
to construct military roads, others to make tunnels for 
the Bagdad railroad, and others to cultivate the fields. 
Receiving absolutely no pay, badly nourished and clothed, 
exposed to changes in the weather, to the blazing sun of 
Bagdad and the intolerable cold of the Caucasus, assailed 
by sickness, fever, eruptive typhoid and cholera, they 
are perishing by thousands. For awhile those able to 
pay the exemption fees were released from service, and 
thus those who were relatively well off were rescued 
from ruin and sure death, but for the last five months 
these, too, have been compelled to serve in these labor 
battalions. While visiting the hospitals of the city of 
Iconium, I have seen these unfortunates stretched out on 
their beds or on the ground hke living skeletons, waiting 



10 PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 

in agony for death as their dehverer from this hfe of 
misery and privation. There is a total lack of drugs and 
food, and the only attention the sick receive is a visit 
from the doctor twice a day. Those who are able to 
stand go about the streets of the city begging a piece of 
bread. In order to give a faithful picture of this 
grievous situation it is enough to state that the cemetery 
of Iconium, as a result of the great mortality of the 
Greeks working in these labor battalions, has been 
filled to overflowing with graves in which not one corpse, 
as is the usual custom, is buried, but into which are 
cast, like dogs, as many as four, five or even six 
dead." 

As a result of this state of affairs it was perfectly 
natural that the Christians should not come forward to 
enter the army but should prefer to leave the country 
secretly in order to escape these dread sufferings. But 
this is exactly what the Germano-Turks wanted, since 
they thus obtained a reasonable pretext for all kinds of 
persecution and for the adoption of Draconian measures 
which were extended so as to include the families and 
kinsmen of those who ran away in order to escape mili- 
tary service. 

The official decision for the taking of these measures 
is dated October 21, 1915, and it was issued by the 
Enlistment Bm-eau in Constantinople. We use the term 
" official " since even before its issuance the measures 
that were announced at this time had long been carried 
out in actual practice in the provinces. By this decision 
the heaviest penalties were imposed on deserters and men 
who avoided service, unless they surrendered within a 
given time, their families being at the same time sent 
to the interior of Anatolia; what was worse, no dis- 
tinction was made between those who were banished by 
the authorities and those who had for many years been 
living abroad. 

One can easily imagine how certain the complete 



PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 11 

destruction of Hellenism was made by this measure, espe- 
cially if the fanaticism with which it was carried out be 
taken into account, for naturally these measures were not 
extended to include the Mussuhnan deserters. In order 
to understand this, it is enough to glance at the follow- 
ing extracts of official reports. 

Thus the report of the vice-consul of Greece in 
Cydonia dated December 12, 1914, No. 672 (Ministerial 
Archives, No. 47298) makes the following statement: 
"About 5 A.M. soldiers closely invested Cydonia and 
guards with fixed bayonets beset the Greek houses and 
even the consulate itself, stopping all traffic in the 
streets. At the same time the Military Governor, 
through a proclamation, summoned the deserters to pre- 
sent themselves, and ordered the citizens to hand over 
all hidden weapons. About midday a house to house 
search began, executed by officers who did not spare even 
the churches themselves. During this search many un- 
heard of excesses were committed and upward of two 
hundred Greeks were seized. In Genitsarochori, in 
particular, the gendarmes went so far as to outrage 
women. But what surpasses all description is what took 
place in Moschonesia, where churches were looted, and 
men and women were beaten and tortured. Thus a man 
named Copanos was thrown into a pit and pricked with 
needles to compel him to betray the whereabouts of 
weapons and deserters supposedly concealed in Mos- 
chonesia. The bishop Photios, various priests and prom- 
inent men were seized, beaten and imprisoned in a mill, 
to be released only after some days had passed. The 
object of this search for deserters and arms was to di- 
minish the male population, to disarm the inhabitants 
and to dishearten the Greek element through various 
oppressive means. During this cruel search crowds of 
Bashibouzouks surrounded the city awaiting the signal 
to come in and loot and destroy the place. The Military 
Governor was heard to say: "One or two more such 



12 PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 

searches and the city will be emptied of its men. Then 
we will kick the women into the sea." 

In the above mentioned report from Bryoulla dated 
August 15, 1915, and numbered 319, appear among 
other facts the following: " In the afternoon of the 8th 
of the current month, the clerk of police, who is the 
scourge and terror of the Greeks here, going out as usual 
through the various quarters of the city in his search for 
deserters in hiding, wished to enter into a house in the 
Bazeli quarter, to make the regular search. One of the 
gendarmes accompanying him, hurled a good-sized stone 
at the house-dog, who had attacked them as they came 
in. The stone, however, missed its mark and struck 
the police secretary a serious blow on the head, and he 
was carried off half-conscious to his home. The authori- 
ties learning of this accident and thinking that it was a 
case of revenge on the part of some Christian, the man 
who had done it faihng to acknowledge the deed, issued 
orders that all the inhabitants of that quarter should be 
arrested. In fact, shortly afterward, men, women, the 
aged, the sick, women that had just given birth to babes 
and the babes themselves, were taken to the police station. 
The incident spread panic throughout the whole city. 
That very hour the shops were closed and all, in ^n 
agony of fear, took refuge in their houses and awaited 
the outcome. On the 10th of August a deserter, caught 
in his house by a soldier, refused to follow. Other 
soldiers that ran up at the time set upon him with their 
bayonets, wounding him in various parts of his body. 
Finally, last night, the authorities, who were intending to 
draft the Christians who had reached the age of twenty- 
one, proceeded, without issuing any call, to their immedi- 
ate arrest." 

No doubt remains as to the object aimed at by the 
Turks in thus drafting Christians into military service, 
for this is clearly proven by a report from Amissos 
dated May 19, 1916, in which, among other facts that 



PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 13 

inspire horror, is the following, which utterly invahdates 
the Turkish plea that they had proceeded to take these 
measures because repeated amnesties had not succeeded 
in persuading the deserters to join the ranks: "Those 
of the deserters who gave themselves up were thrown 
into prison here by hundreds and were left for a 
month and a half without bread and without any care 
being taken of them. I asked repeatedly that bread be 

given them but the Moutesarif refused: Senator 

visited him, but he paid no heed, so that we have been 
obhged to feed these prisoners in order to prevent their 
dying from starvation. Finally, after torturing them in 
this way, he handcuffed hundreds of them and sent them 
thus bound, to Sebasteia, a fifteen days' journey, during 
which they suffered terribly." 

The gloominess of the picture presented by the facts 
above reported is matched by what happened in Kera- 
sounda. From this city it is officially and authoritatively 
reported, under date of the 21st of April, 1917, that on 
account of three hundred deserters, eighty-eight Greek 
villages were evacuated and burned from December, 
1916^ to February, 1917. The inhabitants of these vil- 
lages', numbering about 30,000, mostly women, children 
and old men, were taken by force to the district of 
Ancyra (Angora), in the harshest winter weather, and at 
a time when epidemics were rife, without their being 
permitted to take even their clothing with them. Of this 
population one-fourth perished on the road in conse- 
quence of the hardships, starvation and exposure. 



CHAPTER III 
REQUISITIONS AND CONTRIBUTIONS 

Requisitions 

We may regard as complementary to the forced en- 
listment by which the destruction of the Greek element 
in Turkey was sought, the measures by which, first, 
under the form of ' requisitions,' the Greek commercial 
establishments were literally looted; second, illegal taxes 
were levied and, third, the property of the ejected popu- 
lations was confiscated. 

It is well known that from the time of the adoption of 
the Constitution in Turkey the ruin of the material pros- 
perity of the Greeks was assailed through attempts to 
isolate them commercially. These measures had previ- 
ously been adopted against the Austrians in connection 
with the Bosnia-Herzegovina question, and they were 
later rendered more effective by the distribution of the 
circulars of the Deutsche Palestina Bank, mentioned 
above. But this commercial isolation could not bring 
about the immediate destruction, from a material point 
of view, of the Greeks, because they had even among 
themselves a vigorous commercial life; they possessed 
property to an extent not to be despised, and they con- 
trolled a wealth of laborers to work with. 

In order to compass the Turkish aims there was 
adopted therefore in the first place the system of so- 
called ' requisitioning,' with which was closely connected, 
to be sure, in a more systematic way than before, the 
plan of commercial isolation ( boycott ) . Thus the Turks 
were forbidden to have any commercial dealings with 
the Greeks, whom they even deprived of the right to 
import merchandise, and everywhere in the East there 
w^re established Turkish trade agencies for the import 

14 



PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 15 

and export of merchandise exclusively through Mussul- 
man hands. 

The way these requisitions were carried out is suffi- 
ciently described in a report from Constantinople dated 
November 13, 1915, No. 6353 (Ministerial Documents, 
No. 39904) in which the manner of the destruction of 
Greek commerce is made evident. The requisitions prac- 
tically amounted to the confiscation of Greek property 
and the plundering thereof. For how else can such 
procedure be characterized, when it is well known that 
this requisitioning was so widely extended that even com- 
mon soldiers, without any warrant had the right to enter 
into houses, as happened in Bryoulla in June, 1915, and 
by threats to take possession of hay, beans, etc., stored 
in them, and, taking advantage of the circumstances, to 
steal whatever they could lay hands on. When military 
officers and civil officials were permitted to enter Greek 
shops and take for their private use anything that they 
happened upon without paying for it or giving any 
receipt, can such action rightly be called "requisition- 
ing"? Certainly a course of general procedure, accord- 
ing to which the very food in the houses of the Greeks 
was seized, thus condemning the owners to sure starva- 
tion, cannot rightly be thus entitled. 

Contributions 

These requisitions, thus executed, were followed by 
imposing, day by day, obligatory assessments, in the 
name of the Committee for the Relief of the Refugees, 
or in behalf of the Turkish fleet, or for purchasing mili- 
tary uniforms and other things. 

These assessments at first were levied in the form of 
tickets for compulsory attendance at theatrical perform- 
ances and voluntary (!) contributions. Yet, in both of 
these cases, the Greek was not free to give what he was 
able and desired to give, but there was imposed upon 
him an amount arbitrarily fixed by the first committee 



16 PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 

that approached him. There was also apphed the system 
of the imposition by threats upon every city or village 
of a given tax for ^he payment of which the inhabitants 
were held responsiole, the objects being, now, the erec- 
tion of barracks, and, again, the installation of tele- 
phones, and so on, to the point where these violent 
exactions were levied in order to erect ^lussulman 
schools or to buy threshing machines for the Mussuhiian 
villages. 

Thus in April, 1915, the village Imbrik-Tepe of the 
Kessane district was obliged to pay 1,000 Turkish pounds 
to buy threshing machines. In June, 1915, the larger 
villages in the district of Proussa were compelled to pay 
the following sums in Turkish pounds in behalf of the 
committee for the support of the refugees, ]Medzetie 800 
pounds, Sige 150 pounds, Trigha 700 pounds {Report of 
the Vice-Consul of Proussa, January 10, 1915, to the 
Legation at Constantinople, Xo. 84, ^Ministerial Archives, 
No. 3396). The same happened to the inhabitants of 
Cydonia and ]Moschonesia, who, through floggings and 
imprisomiient were compelled to pay 2,500 Turkish 
pounds for the uniforms of the Turkish army and 2,000 
Turkish pounds for the construction of barracks; to pay 
a wheat-tax for the upkeep of the navy, and to buy, at 
no cheap price, post-cards with pictures of the sover- 
eigns of the Triple Alhance. 

The Germano-Turk inventiveness, however, did not 
reach its limit at this point in the proposed destruction 
of the Greeks. It went even farther. Through im- 
pressment, all those who were able to work were seized, 
regardless of age, and the duty of cultivating the fields 
of Mussulman immigrants was imposed on them. Even 
their very seed-grain was taken away from them, so that 
they might be unable to use their own fields and to get 
some profit from their cultivation. 

In conjunction with this, all contrivances were resorted 
to so that the Greek populations might not control any 



PERSECUTIOXS OF THE GREEKS 17 

part whatever of their crops., a fact that is proven by a 
report as to this from Cydonia of the 18th of August, 
1915, Xo. 2.57 (Ministerial Archives:.^ Xo. 1333): "The 
time for the gathering of the ohves has come, but the 
authorities are endeavoring, in even' way, to prevent the 
harvesting of the crop. Those who dare to go out in the 
open country are beaten, robbed and arrested as being 
subject to mihtar^' service, or are wounded and killed by 
Turkish bandits, beneath the ver^' eyes of the authori- 
ties. All this is done that the Cydonians may abandon 
the getting in of their crop of olives, and that the Turks 
may harvest it on their own account." 

Furthermore, through special catechising the Mus- 
sulmans were urged not to pay any of their debts to the 
Greeks. The economical results of this measure on the 
Greeks, who were thus commercially boycotted by this 
estabhslmient of a Turkish trade-monopoly, are described 
in a report of 1917 from Kerasounda, transmitted in a 
communication of the Legation in Constantinople (Min- 
isterial Archives, Xo. 4901) in which the following char- 
acteristic incidents are narrated: " The Committee sent 
to all the Mussulman villages special delegates who pro- 
claimed that the Sultan had ordered a release of the 
Turks from all debts owed to Christians, and had 
ordered the Turks, on penalty of hanging, not only not 
to pay ami:hing to their Christian creditors, but also that 
Turkish tenants of the farms should not pay the cus- 
tomary rents to the Christian owners of farm property. 
In fact they brought it about- that from the time of the 
outbreak of the European War up to to-day hardly a 
single Turk has paid to the Greeks anything toward his 
debt or his rent. But since the economical system of 
the country- consisted in distributing to the peasants, up 
to Julv, all the available monev and in beorinninof their 
collection of the debt in the middle of August, the Greeks 
as a result of this prohibitive propaganda of the Turks 
were in a critical financial situation and tliis aU the more 



18 PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 

since the banks not only held up their credit but even 
on the other hand insistently demanded back their loans, 
and, on account of the mobilizations these men were 
furthermore under an urgent necessity to find money to 
pay their fees in order to exempt them from military 
service." 

These ways of destroying the material prosperity of 
the Greeks which were thus directly and secretly pur- 
sued, were supplemented by the sale for the benefit of 
the government of all the property in the villages whose 
inhabitants had been expelled, as is proven, in addition 
to other evidence, by what happened in the district of 
Proussa, from a few villages of which the government 
received from oil alone 1,500,000 Turkish jDounds, as well 
as by the following which is given in a report dated 
February 25, 1917, from Amissos (SamsoUn) : "During 
these last days the tobacco storehouses of our merchants 
were released from Government control and the owners, 
acting through proxies, were allowed to sell the tobacco. 
Meanwhile the tobacco of the villages which had been 
evacuated but not burned, as Eliazkioi, Andrianta, Teke- 
kioi, Cadikioi, etc., were put up at auction by the Govern- 
ment and after a few days their final sale will take place 
and the Government will take over the money, while in 
the interior of the country the peasant owners of this 
tobacco are dying of starvation." 



CHAPTER IV 
CONVERSIONS TO MOHAMMEDANISM 

Having thus aimed at and achieved the financial ruin 
of the Greek people, they sought to decrease their num- 
bers by forced and crafty conversions to Mohammedan- 
ism. One who recalls the first years of the government 
under the Young Turk constitution immediately remem- 
bers the turmoil which this question provoked even in 
the Turkish parliament. Consequently, an age hmit for 
such conversions was fixed and the necessary formahties 
were decided on. 

During the period of the persecutions, as the conver- 
sions to Mohammedanism formed part of the system 
which was planned, it was thought proper quietly to lay 
aside the laws and regulations and to pursue by every 
means and in a systematic manner the Islamization of the 
Christians. One of the most diabolical methods adopted 
was the creation of the so-called Orphan Institutions at 
Panormo, the founder of which was General Liman Von 
Sanders himself, who had the impudence to demand from 
the Greeks 10,000 Turkish pounds for the maintenance 
of these institutions. (Telegram from Constantinople of 
March 17, 1917. Ministerial Archives, No. 3272.) 
These Orphan Institutions have in appearance a chari- 
table object, but if one considers that their inmates are 
Greek boys, who became orphans because their parents 
were murdered, or who were snatched away from their 
mothers, or left in the streets for want of nourislmient 
(of which they were deprived by the Turks), and that 
these Greek children receive there a purely Turkish edu- 
cation, it will be at once seen that under the cloak of 
charity there lurks the ' child collecting ' system insti- 

19 



20 PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 

tuted in the past by the Turkish conquerors and a new 
effort to revive the janissary system. The Greek boys 
were treated in this manner. What happens to the 
Greek girls? If we review the consular reports about 
the persecutions from the year 1915 to 1917 we shall 
hardly find one of them which does not speak of forcible 
abductions and conversions to Mohammedanism. And 
it could not have been otherwise, since it is well known 
that this action, as has been stated above, was decided 
upon in June, 1915, in order to effect the Turkification 
of the Hellenic element. This plan was carried out 
methodically and in a diabolical manner, through the 
' mixed settlements' of Greeks and Turks, always with 
a predominance of Mohammedan males and of Greek 
females in order to compel mixed marriages. This is 
evident from a report from Constantinople dated Janu- 
ary 14, 1916, in which it is stated that the Turkish Gov- 
ernment instructed the Governor of Broussa to place 
the Greek refugees by groups of ten to thirty families 
in Mussulman villages with a proportion always of ten 
per cent, to the Mohammedan population. 

Who can give a different meaning to these instruc- 
tions when one considers the daily conversions in different 
parts of the country, in which the starvation to which 
the Greek populations have been condemned plays a 
prominent part? 

•The above reasoning is further strengthened by a 
report dated June 14, 1915, transmitted with the peti- 
tion No. 4409 of the Greek Legation at Constantinople 
(Ministerial Archives, No. 8670), according to which 
the conversions to Mohammedanism are usually due to 
force exercised by the authorities, who, as soon as 
the Greek refugees are established in Turkish villages, 
consider it their prime duty to give the Greeks to under- 
stand that food will be given to them only if they become 
Mohammedans. 

In another report from Baloukeser dated April 16, 



PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 21 

1915, and transmitted with the above mentioned com- 
munication of the Legation of Constantinople (Minis- 
terial Archives, No. 8760), it is stated: "By order of 
the Government, groups of five to ten Greek families are 
sent to Turkish villages with strict orders to the local 
Turkish Mouktars (an official representing the Govern- 
ment in the villages) not to allow the refugees, under 
any circumstances, to leave the villages to which they are 
sent. What is the result of this? They will either die 
of starvation from lack of employment or they will em- 
brace the Mohammedan faith. The first has already 
begun, the second is impending. Besides that, the aim 
of the Government is the Islamization of the Greek 
refugees, as is proved both from the pressure which is 
exerted in every way against them and the strict orders 
issued to the Mouktars to give to the ' infidel refugees ' 
twenty centimes a day." From these reports it is evi- 
dent that the conversions to Mohammedanism are con- 
sidered as an important means toward succeeding in 
annihilating the Greek element, which is the cardinal 
policy both of the Turkish Government and of the 
people. 



CHAPTER V 

CRIMES AND ACTS OF VIOLENCE AGAINST 
THE GREEKS 

Besides the above mentioned means employed, during 
this period, for the annihilation of the Greek people, 
other measures have also been adopted, which vary ac- 
cording to the circumstances and the persons involved, 
but which are all based on the same fixed and premedi- 
tated program, and tend to the attaimnent of the same 
end. These are as follows: 

First, the system was inaugurated of committing scat- 
tered murders here and there, instead of the massacres en 
masse which characterized the first period of the persecu- 
tions. The object of this system was either to terrorize 
the Greek population, so that it would be compelled to 
confine itself to the cities and villages, and would not go 
out to look after its properties in the open country and 
to attend to its other labors, being therefore thus con- 
demned to economic ruin, or to bring about the dis- 
appearance of prominent persons, who on account of 
their standing might keep up the courage of the op- 
pressed people, or aid them financially. Both these 
means of relief were contrary to the program which was 
being carried out, one of the aims of which was to com- 
pel the Greeks by frightfulness to voluntary expatria- 
tion. For how else can these isolated but successive 
crimes which are being committed with impunity before 
the very eyes of the authorities be explained? Can they 
be considered as ordinary crimes committed for the 
purpose of robbery? In that case why should these 
victims be arrested openly in the villages, and why 
should they be taken away afterwards to be tortured 
and slain? How can one explain the incident mentioned 

23 



PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 23 

in the report of the Consul General of Smyrna dated 
December 12, 1914, No. 9157 (Ministerial Archives, No. 
890), to mention a single example out of many. Ac- 
cording to this report a Greek who was arrested in the 
Appa railway station of Denizli, was only released after 
promising under oath that he would leave the country. 
Undoubtedly murders form a part of the plan of 
persecution of the Greek populations. This is evident 
from the report of the Consulate General of Smyrna, 
No. 60, dated December 22, 1915 (Ministerial Archives, 
No. 5960), according to which, in the District of Men- 
dessa alone, exclusive of the Sanjak of Mougla, over 
200 Greeks were murdered from July, 1914, to the end 
of December, 1915. Also, a report from Kirk-Kihsse, 
dated January 5, 1916, No. 16 (Ministerial Archives, 
No. 2931) verifies the above, from which the following 
extract is taken: 

" At the time of the departure of the unfortunate 
Greeks from Skopos, a thoroughly Hellenic virile com- 
munity of Thrace, who were abandoning their homes 
and properties, with lamentations and wailing, under the 
funeral peals of the bells of their churches, which the 
barbarians were ringing to the accompaniment of wild 
cheers as an indication of the funeral of the village 
of Skopos, some of their notables and educated persons, 
such as Papakyriacos, the Constantopoulo brothers, Pelo- 
pidas Davajanidi, Zaphirios Zaphiriades and Theodore 
Kokalas, were seized and after being led a short distance 
out of the village were beheaded like sheep and their 
bodies were left there to become the prey of dogs and 
vultures. Two days before the Turks had arrested 
another of the most prominent and educated citizens, 
namely, Simos Simopoulos, whom they beheaded out- 
side of the town, after subjecting him to unheard of 
tortures. 

Flogging and imprisonment formed a second effective 
means of annihilation. Many of those beaten were com- 



24 PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 

pelled to make incriminating statements in regard to 
other persons, which were entirely false, and in that man- 
ner various pretexts were found for the justification of 
the crimes committed against the Greeks. Others, being 
imprisoned and condemned by the military court with- 
out any cause whatever, were left to rot in jail or to 
die from various contagious diseases and bad food. 

Thirdly, through assaults on Greek women, the de- 
struction of Hellenic homes, and the moral degradation 
of Hellenism was sought, free play being thus given to 
the well-known lascivious nature of the Turks and their 
criminal instincts; for where in the world do policemen 
when taking innocent women and girls to prison attack 
and rape them on the way? 

The Vice-Consul of Aivali, in his report No. 2905, 
dated September 16, 1915 (Ministerial Archives, No. 
10831), says that a Greek is treated as an outcast and 
his honor is the prey of the first Bashibouzouk, who has 
been taught by the Turkish officials to commit the most 
abominable orgies against him. In another report the 
same Vice-Consul says that a gendarme had abducted 
from the village of Ghioumetsi a girl by the name of 
Despina Stephani and that the latter after having been 
first assaulted by Nouri Bey, the Chief of the Gen- 
darmes, was then in turn assaulted by other gendarmes 
and Government employees; that military and civil of- 
ficials, estabhshing themselves in houses seized from 
Greeks, made them centers of debauchery and abomina- 
tion; that to these dens Greek girls are forcibly taken 
and assaulted and that already 200 of them are pregnant. 
Identical orgies are confirmed in a report dated April 1, 
1915, from Ganochori, which, after giving an account of 
the arrest of the wives of the deserters (Greeks) and 
the beating to which these women were subjected, adds 
that all the imprisoned women were assaulted at night, 
and that the gendarmes even assaulted a deserter who 
was caught. But the true picture of these assaults on 



PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 25 

Greek women is given in the report from Panormo, dated 
June 10, 1915, and transmitted by a communication from 
the Legation of Constantinople under No. 4406 (Minis- 
terial Archives, No. 8670) which mentions the follow- 
ing incidents in regard to the deported Greek popula- 
tions: "Women and girls are wandering about the 
coffee-houses in the villages, being forced by the Turks 
to dance indecent dances of a kind that I cannot 
describe." 

In the fourth place, various devices are used in order 
to reduce the Greeks to poverty and want, such as thefts, 
plunderings, refusal to give them wheat and flour, and 
forbidding the deported population to carry away with 
them even the smallest article. Many victims of this kind 
of persecution have been noted. Thus, according to a 
telegram from Constantinople, dated July 15, 1915, No. 
4116 (Ministerial Archives, No. 7744), "Among the 
refugees from Madytos, numbering about 1,730, two or 
three deaths occur daily from starvation; in the railway 
station next to Panormo, since June 23, six or seven 
thousand refugees have been living in want of every- 
thing, thirty or forty of them dying every day from 
hunger and thirst, because the Turks do not allow them 
to procure for themselves bread and water." 

According to another report, dated May 26, 1916, 
transmitted through a communication of the Legation of 
Constantinople under No. 548 (Ministerial Archives, 
No. 5079) : " All the leading and respectable men of our 
villages have been and are being pitilessly flogged by the 
gendarmes, who are wasting the scanty flour which was 
left for the poor inhabitants; they are killing and eating 
the sheep and cows belonging to the villages by hundreds 
and are compelling the villagers, under the lash, to pro- 
vide them with raki (Turkish brandy), sugar, and things 
which are very scarce, which are bought by the unfortu- 
nate people at unheard of prices, and furthermore, in 
order to deprive the villagers even of bread, they pre- 



26 PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 

vent them from working in their fields, and threaten to 
kill anyone who shall be caught cultivating his land." 

Fifth, expulsion and deportation were legahzed. This 
measure had as its consequence the expulsion from cities 
and villages of all the leading men and of those who 
might have been able to assist the suffering Greek popu- 
lation. Thus, according to the report of the Legation 
of Constantinople, numbered 1246, dated March, 1915 
(Ministerial Archives, No. 2866): "Up to the 8th of 
the current month over two hundred leading men of 
Constantinople had been expelled to Biledjik, Yeni-shehir 
and other parts of the interior of Asia Minor." 

According to another report from Attalia (No. 67, 
dated April 6), since the participation of Turkey in the 
war there have been expelled six hundred prominent men 
of Iconium and its vicinity, thirty-one of Sparta, and 
nineteen of Phenix, who were sent to Bazir of the Prov- 
ince of Iconium, which is sixty hours distant from their 
homes. But we must note that the number of persons 
expelled from the open country is unknown. Similar 
expulsions of leading men took place in various parts of 
Samsoun and elsewhere. 

Sixth, gangs of Turks were going about the open coun- 
trj'', whose principal business was to prevent the Greeks, 
by force, from leaving the cities and villages in order 
to cultivate their lands, so that, being exhausted from 
hunger and terrorized they might of their own accord 
leave the country and their homes. 

These gangs were led by officers of the gendarmes, 
and were composed of prisoners undergoing a long 
sentence, who were released from jail in order to carry 
out this work, and, generally, of persons of bad character. 
About the doings of these gangs, which during the per- 
secutions of 1913-1914 made their appearance as irregu- 
lar bands without any organization whatever, a report 
from Adrianople, dated March 30, 1915, No. 19 (Minis- 
terial Archives, No. 7278), treats but details as to these 



PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 27 

matters were made known by a report from Smyrna, 
dated January 10, and another dated March 30, 1915, 
under No. 72 (Ministerial Archives, No. 7278) which 
shows their entire organization. Thus, for the Province 
of Aidin, the center of the organization of the gangs was 
Magnesia, where it was decided that a gang of fifteen 
members should have its headquarters in the district of 
Salihh, of ten in that of Demirji, of fifteen in that of 
Koula and of an equal number in that of Philadelphia 
(Alashehir). 

The first activity of these gangs was noticed in the 
district of Ghiordes, where, after having attained their 
end, which was to prevent the Greeks from leaving their 
homes for the open country, the gangs entered right into 
the town and plundered the shop of Hadji Emmanuel 
Athanasoglou. 

The work assigned to the gangs of Demirji and Salihh 
was to act against the Christians who were engaged in 
business in Mussuhnan villages. These through taxa- 
tion, threats, beatings and plunderings of their shops were 
compelled to close up. 

The activity of these gangs was extended to such a 
point that under the cloak of the military uniform, they 
harassed the very environs of Smyrna itself where before 
the very gates of the city, within a period of two months, 
five attacks were made on Christians who were living on 
their farms. 

The guilty co-operation of the authorities with these 
gangs is proved by the fact that when the chief brigand 
Hadji Moustafa imposed a tax of five thousand Turkish 
pounds on the village of Moursouli of the Province of 
Aidin and the villagers denounced this act to the Moudir 
of Demirdji to whom they even gave the letter in which 
the demand had been made, the Moudir had some of the 
Christians arrested and imprisoned, accusing them of hav- 
ing actually forged the letter. 

As a proof of the havoc wrought on the Greek popu- 



28 PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 

lations by these gangs it is enough to say that it was 
through their agency that the murders of the Greeks 
were committed and that their members formed, so to 
speak, the Executive Committee of the whole organiza- 
tion which has been and is still active in the persecution 
of the Greeks. 

In order to prove specifically the Greek persecutions 
mentioned in this chapter, according to their different 
categories, a statistical table is given below, based on 
the reports of our consular authorities in Turkey. This 
only comprises a very small part of the Turkish out- 
rages which were committed during that time. It is 
impossible to give a complete list of the names of the 
Greek victims, because it was exceedingly difficult and 
often impossible for our consular officials to get infor- 
mation about things happening out in the country. Con- 
sequently there came to their knowledge only the names 
of those victims whose death, either by reason of their 
prominence or by force of circumstances, could not be 
concealed by the Turkish authorities, who showed a 
special zeal in the concealment of crimes committed 
against the Greeks. It is quite certain, furthermore, 
that many reports of our consular officials, particularly 
those of the year 1916, were never received either by our 
Legation at Constantinople or the Ministry of Foreign 
Affairs at Athens. 

STATISTICAL TABLE OF THE CRIMES WHICH HAVE 
BEEN COMMITTED AGAINST THE GREEKS 

SMYRNA 

July 1914. G. Paxinos, C. Paxinos, Skyrianos, Ph. Kam- 

biris. A, Loutraris, Lalas, five brothers 
Tsichhi, were killed at Kiosteni. 
" 1914. A. Papaioannou, G. Georgiadis, A. Chrlsto- 

doulou Chalkias, were killed in the village of 
Askioi ; C. Orphanos, G. Tseravellis, were 
butchered on the road to Vourla. 



PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 29 

Ann- 1914. Two Stamatiou brothers and their servant were 

^' killed near Ghioulhissar. Mrs. TriantaphyUi 

and Mrs. Zacharoula Aspromati were as- 
saulted by soldiers. 
Sp-nt 1914.. The two brothers A. and Z. Kavakioti were 

^ killed near Gali-Tekeli. G. Kagritsoglou 

and his son Elias were killed at Aghiasolouk. 
The brothers I, and E. Kontoyanni were 
killed at Develikioi. I. Michalios, I. Tsini- 
roglou, were killed at Kouroutseshme. Ka- 
rayannis and Spanoudis were killed at 
Ouskioi. 
Dec 1914 I. Procopiou, G. Charalambides, G. Mylonas, 

were butchered in the village of Karaoulani. 
Constantelli brothers, S. Samios, Karapana- 
ghiotis and his son, Tsemeli, were murdered 
near Sevdikioi. P. Tsomlotsoglou, P. Keha- 
yioglou, D. Tsilonoglou, were murdered near 
Salihli; Kirkintsohs, Kaphilis, N. Krassas- 
sounis and a certain Demetrios, natives of 
Macedonia, were butchered. 
T«n 17 1915 N. Kypriotis, was murdered near Mezikli. The 
' prominent citizen C. Metaxas, was severely 

wounded at Mylassa. The three brothers 
Manoussoglou and Karpouzas were butchered 
in their mills at Hotetou. Constantine Gre- 
goriou was killed at Agatsikioi. 
« 19 " P. Sklavounos, A. Karlaghinis, were killed near 
the village of Gheronta. Th. Corphiatis and 
his servant were killed at Gheronta. 
« 22 " Ch. Tourtsekoushoglou and Ch. Tsomlektsoglou 
were murdered near the village of Gheronta. 
Neophotistos Georgiou was killed at Meressi. 
a 27 " C. Nikolaou and his wife at Mylassa. 
« 3o' " Th. Kariotis was severely wounded, also Maria 

Psalti and her daughter, near Kirtsali. 
" 31 " Th. Xenos, V. Salatso, were killed at Bournabat. 
' The priest Mamakis and Chasidakis were 

murdered at Halicarnassos. 
Feb. 1, 1915. N. Balis at Menemen. 



« 


12, 


(« 


13, 


(( 


16, 


March 8, 


a 


10, 


Apri 


il 10, 



30 PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 

Feb. 5, 1915. Marigo Protopsalti was assaulted and severely 
wounded in the village of Kirtsali. N. Tilia- 
kos, Th. Tomios, were murdered near Nazilli. 
" 11, " C. Voudouris, D. Nidraios, I. Melios, at Vaya- 
kassi near the village of Sokia. P. Zachariou 
at Mourtzali. 
St. Strategos at Mezarlik. 

Lieutenant Nouri with two other officers as- 
saulted and severely wounded Mrs. A. Kous- 
saki at St. George, a suburb of Smyrna. 
V. Moustakias was found beheaded in his house 

at Koukloutsa. 
E. Saghior was murdered in the village of Mito- 

chori. 
G. Yiannitakis was killed at Tsapaki. I. Yioules, 

L. Tsemalis, were murdered at Menemen. 
V. Kavakiotis, E. Kavakiotis and his son, 12 
years of age, were butchered at Yabeni. In 
the same village the two minor sons of Deli- 
manoli were severely wounded. 
May 1915. I. Lagos was murdered at Ephesus. E. Phou- 

tounoglou was murdered near Koula. Kara- 
kalpakis and two millers, one named Costas 
and another of unknown name, were found 
dead, perforated by bullets, near Nazilli. 
" 16, " A. Carmeropoulos was murdered near Yeni- 
Pazar. Ch. Christodoulou was severely 
wounded by a bullet. 
June 5, " Ph. Namatianos was murdered at Karapounar. 
" 15, " After the bombardment at Halicarnassos 
eighteen (18) inhabitants and one girl, 16 
years old, were slaughtered by Mohammedan 
Cretans. 
" 16, " D. Roumcliotis, D. Tagheas, were murdered at 
Bouyoukli. I. Milonas and his son George 
Kirkintse. 
July " D. Arghyrakis was murdered. 

August " A. Spyroglou was murdered at Kirkintse. 
Sept. " Ch. Savvopoulos, I. Hadjipetros, D. Broussalis, 

I. Phetsopoulos were murdered at Aktse. 



PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 31 

Oct. 1915. C. Baindirlis, E. Karinas, D. Pathos and I. 

Baxevanis were murdered at Sokia. V. Kar- 
velas was imprisoned and subjected to ter- 
rible tortures from which he died after a few 
days. G. Gouvelas was imprisoned. 

Dec. " Five corpses which had been mutilated horribly 

were taken from a river near the village of 
Gheronta. 



CYDONIA (aIVALI) 

Nov. 23, 1914. D. loannou, M. Hadjiyannis and D. Lachanas 
were murdered. S. Hadjiantoniou, I. Rou- 
valas, P. Michalios and I. Liscos were mur- 
dered near Pagamli. 
" 26, " A, band of Mohammedan refugees attacked in 
the suburbs many laborers, both men and 
women. They committed rape upon many 
girls. 
Jan. 25, 1915. D. Sessypis was murdered at Moschonesia, and 

his brother was severely wounded. 
Feb. 10, " G. Koukoutos and A. Delioglanis while on an 
excursion outside the city disappeared to- 
gether with their carriage. D. Maliaros, P. 
, Sideris, I. Tessivassis, P. Hadjicosmas, were 

arrested and beaten by Bashibouzouks (ma- 
rauders) ; they were found naked and half- 
dead in the suburbs of the city. 
" 13, " P. Psaroukis and his son were murdered, and 
their bodies were thrown into a well by a 
gendarme. 
" 16, " St. Arghyrou was severely wounded, and his 

brother Panaghis was beaten. 
" 17, " Five corpses were found burned near the cit}' ; 
it seems that the victims were burned alive. 
" 23, " P. Makris, E. Anestis, I. Chamalis, were slaugh- 
tered by soldiers. 
March 5, " Forty-two (42) Greek peasants were seized by 
Bashibouzouks, their fate being unknown. 



June 


12, 1915 


July 


8, " 


(( 


10, " 


(( 


14, " 


Aug. 


1, " 



32 PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 

March 7, 1915. Palaeologos, Apsathas, N. Vloros and the 15- 
year-old boy, B. Klaromenos, were found be- 
headed. Their bodies bore signs of torture. 
" 31, " The body of a young boy, with a rope round his 
neck, was found in the water-closet of a 
Turkish house. 
May 11, " Fifty (50) men and women were seized and sent 
to Smyrna. The women were assaulted on the 
way by the gendarmes. Despoina Stephanou 
was taken to the village of Yioumetsi and as- 
saulted by all the gendarmes of the station. 
A. Maroudis has disappeared. 
C. Apsatos, I. Comnenos and the 14-year-old 

Malemchiari were murdered by soldiers. 
P. Pseftarakos was severely wounded. 
Papademetriou was murdered. 
The body of Photios Dala was found horribly 
mutilated. 
" 15, " A. Koulakanis and G. Zariphis were murdered 
at Moschonesia. Ap. Doudoukas, I. Agela- 
ras, D. Vaphiadis, P. Timakos, D. Orphanos, 
P. Angelidis from Moschonesia, were thrown 
into prison and tortured. 
Jan. 1916. The fishermen G. Vonelis, G, Tsitsonis and P. 

Dedoulos were murdered 
" 25, " The two brothers Ch. and E. Volivos, I. Kou- 
troumbilas, P. and A. Tages, E. Papoutsis, 
S. Saltas, D. Roumeliotis, E. Yannios and P. 
Tsarlimbaris were slaughtered. 
Feb. 12, " The body of P. Koukournara was found slashed 
with sword-cuts. 
" 18, " I. Valmos was murdered. 

BRYOULLA (vOURLa) 

Feb. ■ 1915. E. Hadjiconstantinou and Manatas were im- 
g prisoned without any reason. 

May " Two shepherds, N. Chloros and I. Paraparis, 

were murdered. E. Vretos was severely 
wounded. S. Dimakis, M. Karakyriakos and 
M. Karanikolis were murdered. Many were 



PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 33 

arrested, imprisoned and expelled to Van and 
Mosul, amongst them being the brothers Vati 
and G. Bogdanos. 

June 1915. G. Niaos, V. Germanopoulos and I. Mitaghis 

were murdered near Tsirlidere. Twenty-six 
other Greeks were imprisoned, amongst them 
being G. Tzanetis, I. Koumassonis and the 
priests loannis Panteleimon and Varlaam, 

July " Eighteen (18) Greeks were butchered at 

Kiosteniou, amongst them being P. Xydias, 
S, Kapiris, A. Goutaris, N. Valachis, P. 
Sterghianou and the seventeen-year-old G. 
Valahis. Seventeen (17) other Greeks were 
arrested and eleven (11) Greek subjects were 
expelled. 

Dec. " The body of N, Tarnani was found near Kalam- 

baka (of Vourla) horribly mutilated. 

ATTALIA 

Jan. 1915. A band of Bashibouzouks plundered the house 

of a prominent Greek near Kemeri, who was 
afterwards slaughtered with his wife and 
children. The following were deported to 
the interior (of Asia Minor) : D. Eleutheriou, 
Timoleon and Charal. V. Lazaridis, Theod. 
Kolioglou, Ephraim Danielis, I. Arapoglou, 
M. Kastakoglou, M. Anezoulakis, I. Kadezlis 
and I. Kolioglou. 

March 2, " Ph. Arghyropoulos, K. Kehayioglou, Th. Yiou- 
spazoglou, Eustr. Tousdjoglou, P. Rapitis, 
N. Hadjianastasiou, Alex. Malaleksoglou, 
Eustrat. Kotsoglou, P. Hadjisemer, S. loan- 
nidis, Theod. Skiagoglou, M. Georgiadis, S. 
Santorides, P. Petrides, N. Kouyiandjoglou, 
A. Hadjicbeoglou, Theod. Hadjipares, George 
Michaclis, A. Paloglou and P. Paschalis. 
" 4, " Papa-Iakobos, Papa Christos, Papa Nikolaos 
Apdjoglou, leremias Marouloglou, Artemis 
Tjanoglou, I. Papazoglou, Sp. Papazoglou, 
Cosmas Hadjigeorgandjoglou, K. Aslano- 



34 PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 

glou, p. Aslanoglou, A. Aslanoglou, Phil. 
Aslanoglou, Char. Sinanidis, Dem. Styloglou, 
D. Kahrimanoglou, Ph. Kahrimanoglou, Char. 
Hadjiavramaglou, Sot. Evremoglou, Char. 
Christides, Dcm. Artcmiades, Haadjichara- 
lambos, Hadjithanasoglou, Cosmas Hadjitha- 
nasaylou, L. Dervishoglou, A. Dervishoglou, 
I. Kapa-Kioglou, Hadjlsavas, Hadjiarslan, 
G. Yiodanoglou, Eustr. Arslanoglou, P. Had- 
jioglou, S. Seraphimoglou, Cyrillos Ayiaklo- 
glou, L. Seretaroglou, and P. Hadjipandjo- 
glou. 

March 28, 1915. Eleven Greeks were expelled to the interior (of 
the country). 

April 6, " Five more Greeks were expelled to the interior. 

Aug. 8, " Nineteen more Greeks were expelled to the in- 
terior. It is worthy of notice that up to 
to-day, from the city of Attalia alone, 138 
Greeks have been expelled, and on the other 
hand, that the Greeks who were expelled from 
the village of Smano were robbed by the gen- 
darmes, who took from them about 1,200 
Turkish pounds. 



March 1915. 



CONSTANTINOPLE 

D. Koulekli was murdered at Baloukli. The 
number of the Greeks from Constantinople 
who have been arrested and expelled to Asia 
Minor amounts to 200. Among them are 
the following persons: C. Theodorou, G. Vas- 
siliou, Th. Vassiliou, G. Demosthenes, V. 
Athanassiou, Th. Karaniitsos, T. Vassiliou, 
Ch. Stylianos, P. Symeon, C. loannou, G. 
Panaghiotou, L. Nikolaou, A. Karakos, P. 
Vitalis, M. Apostolou, V. Joseph, E. Anas- 
tasiadis, A. Deskosmidis, L. Gcorgiou, N. 
Zographidis, E. Manouelidis, I. Papoulis, P. 
Constantinou, P. Samamas, N. Athanassiou, 
N. Demon, Ch. Vassiliou, Tli. Prodromou, N. 
Demetriou, V. Saphaidaris, S. Okoumoush, D. 



PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 35 

Saphir, Th. Demetriou, S. Gregoriou, G. Pho- 
tiou, D. Roumounos and Z. Ignatiou. It 
should be noted that according to the com- 
munication No. 12-t6 of March 2 of the 
Legation of Constantinople (Ministerial 
Archives, No. 2866), the total number of the 
Greeks deported to the interior of Asia 
Minor is 10,000. 

June 1915. Sixty Greeks from the districts of Bouyoukdere, 

Tyroloi, Tsatadjsa and Selyvria were brought 
to Constantinople and imprisoned. 

July 1915. Archmandrite A. Papadopoulos, the Archivist 

of the Patriarchate, was imprisoned, and 
after a few months deported. The abbot of 
the Monastery of St. George at Prinkipo, the 
priests loannis Oekonomou and Cyrillos, of 
Bouyoukdere, as well as the Archmandrite 
Gennadios were also imprisoned. 

THRACE 

Jan. 1915. Two Greeks were killed in the village of Kerdeli. 

Seventeen Greeks from Kirk-Kilisse and 
Vizyi were arrested as suspects for the mur- 
der of the son of the Governor. They were 
buried alive in graves which they were com- 
pelled to dig. The teachers and priests of 
the city of Kessani were thrown into jail. 

March " The Rev. Apostolos, a priest of the village of 

Varnitza, was strangled in the prison of Kes- 
sani. Numerous families were imprisoned at 
Chora. The women are thrown on the ground 
and beaten by gendarmes with whips on the 
soles of their feet, in order that they might 
disclose the hiding places of their husbands. 
During the evacuation of the village of Skopos 
the following persons were slain by gen- 
darmes; Papakyriakos, Arist Constantopou- 
los, P. Valantsanidis, Z. Phloros, Zariphiadis, 
Th. Kokkalas and Simos Simopoulos. The 



36 PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 

greater part of the inhabitants of Malgara 
are in jail, where they endure great suffer- 
ings. The representative of the Bishop and 
23 prominent men were taken to Adrianople, 
and on their way beaten by the gendarmes. 
April 1915. Two Greeks were hung in Adrianople wtihout 
any reason. 



PART II 

DEPORTATIONS EN MASSE 

The abolition of the privileges of the Greek Church, 
the drcafting of Christians into the army, the conversions 
to Mohammedanism, the commandeerings and the mur- 
ders of the Greeks in Turkey, constituted, so to speak, 
the work preparatory to their annihilation, and this was 
completed by the sixth measure which was apphed, 
namely, the deportations en masse. 

This was designed in order to bring about the com- 
plete annihilation of the Greek nation by the devasta- 
tion of the flourishing Greek communities in the Otto- 
man Empire. r^ ir v 
This measure which was first apphed m the Gallipoli 
Peninsula and the Hellespont, on the pretext of military 
necessity, was quickly extended to all the settlements 
along the coast and to the islands in the sea of Marmora, 
which are inhabited by Greeks. The towns of Cydonia 
(Aivali) and Amissos (Samsoun) and, generally, the 
settlements along the coasts, except the two great cen- 
ters, Constantinople and Smyrna, where there is a com- 
pact Greek population, were reduced to ruins. 

This measure was taken in consequence of a decision 
of the Young Turk Committee, and was put into execu- 
tion in the year 1915. The Greek Legation at Con- 
stantinople, by a communication dated June 15, 1915, 
No. 3501 (Ministerial Archives, No. 7065), informed 
the Ministrv of Foreign Affairs of the decisions which 
had been taken at Constantinople for the forcible con- 
version of Greeks to the Mohammedan faith by mixed 
marriages between Turks and Greek women who had 

37 



38 PERSECUTIONS OF THE GUEEKS 

been brought into these Turkish villages for settlement 
there. 

The same Legation, by another report, under the 
same date, No. 3500 (Ministerial Archives, No. 6557), 
announces the beginning of the execution of this decision 
in the following manner: 

" Among the decisions taken by the Turkish Commit- 
tee is the conversion to Islam of the Greek populations, 
which is difficult as long as there exist compact Greek 
settlements. Military necessity affords a most suitable 
pretext to have the Christians scattered, thus making 
their Turkification easy. The deportations en masse of 
the inhabitants of the islands of Marmora (Koutali, 
Kalohmnos, Marmora, etc.), have the same object, be- 
cause those that are deported are not settled in Chris- 
tian villages; as for the men, they either imprison or put 
them to forced labor, while the women and children they 
send to Turkish villages." 

The law about the deportation of the Greek popula- 
tions was therefore passed, because otherwise the Turki- 
fication of the Greek element, as shown by the actual 
results, would have been difficult, especially where there 
were compact Greek populations. 

From this one can easily conclude what the pretexts 
repeatedly advanced by the Germano-Turks for these 
deportations were worth, for they alleged at one time 
the so-called supplying of enemy submarines by the 
Greeks, and again that they were in communication 
with the enemy by signals, and at other times that the 
Greeks in Turkey were not loyal. 

The German Government itself on June, 1915, as- 
sured the Greek Minister at Berlin (telegram of the 
Greek Legation at Berlin of June 18, 1915, No. 2384, 
Ministerial Archives, No. 6524), that in order to " please 
the Government of the King it will take steps to put an 
end to these deportations." 

The pretexts of the Turks as to Greek treason were 



PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 39 

intended to mislead public opinion and to justify their 
monstrosities. The human heart is torn in the face of 
the tragical scenes of these deportations. In order to 
understand the magnitude of this tragedy it is sufficient 
to note that the deported persons, after being expelled 
from their villages, had no right to take with them even 
things of absolute necessity. Naked and barefooted, 
without food or water, beaten and insulted by the gangs 
that escorted them, they were, provided they were not 
murdered, led by their executioners to the mountains. 
But most of them died on their way as a result of their 
sufferings, or were left in the road half dead ; women gave 
birth to children as they marched along and abandoning 
their newly born babes at once, continued the journey 
as well as they could, because those that marched slowly 
were beaten by the escorting gendarmes. The end of the 
journey of these unfortunate persons did not terminate 
their sufferings, because the wild inhabitants of the 
Turkish villages admitted them to their villages only to 
deal them the final blow. 

The deportations from the coast of the Black Sea 
and the city of Cydonia (Aivali) which were carried 
out toward the end of the year 1916 and during the 
year 1917, were of the most cruel and inhuman char- 
acter. Besides other cruelties, they resorted also to 
arson and burned all the evacuated villages so that no 
traces of their existence might be left and that the 
ethnological character of these most Hellenic regions 
might be entirely altered. 

The crimes there committed are of such a nature that 
nothing like them is recorded in the pages of history. 

In place of any further description of these occurrences 
the following extracts from the reports of the Greek 
Legation at Constantinople, show, district by district, 
the savagery of the persecutions and the annihilation of 
the Greek population which was brought about by these 
means. 



CHAPTER I 

DARDANELLES, GALLIPOLI, MARMORA, 
KIRK-KILISSE 

The following extracts have been taken from a report 
of the Greek Legation of Constantinople, No. 4099, 
dated June 26, 1915 (Ministerial Archives, No. 7981): 

" The first deportations which took place are those 
of the Dardanelles and Gallipoli (March-April, 1915) 
under the pretext of military necessity and the safety 
of the inhabitants. The Greeks of the Dardanelles were 
sent to Artaki, where no care was taken by the Turkish 
Government for the maintenance of the poor whom the 
well-to-do Greeks supported, but this could not continue 
for a long time because the number of the poor amounted 
to 3,300." 

" After the evacuation of the Dardanelles, that of 
Gallipoli, Madytos, Krithia, and the other villages of 
Gallipoh followed (April 26). The Christian popula- 
tions were compelled to embark on steamships, and were 
forbidden to take anything with them or even to secure 
the safety of their property. The goods in the shops 
belonging to the Christians were plundered and sold by 
the Turkish authorities to two Ottoman companies." 

" The deported people, having been scattered in vari- 
ous villages, such as those of Kipsit, Vigadetos, Sintirghi, 
Soussourlouk, of the district of Baloukesser are in dan- 
ger of dying of starvation, apart from the fact that the 
settling of Greek women amongst the Turks carries with 
it other dangers, such as assaults, conversions to Moham- 
medanism, etc., etc." 

" On April 15, the population of Amygdalia and 
Maistros, of the district of Enos, was ordered to evacu- 

40 



PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 41 

ate these villages within three days, and they were all 
transported to the Turkish villages of Beyendi and Pas- 
sait, while the Turks of the nearby villages plundered 
their properties, churches and monasteries." 

" From the 1st to the 15th of May the inhabitants 
of the villages of Bouyoukdere, Kephalikioi, Kirits, and 
Yeni-Machala were ordered to abandon their villages 
within three days." 

" Although the Turkish Government maintained that 
the deportations formed a general measure and were due 
to military necessity, as both the Grand Vizier (Prime 
Minister) and the German Ambassador told me when 
I protested in person about the deportations — still, after 
the departure of the Greeks, their houses and properties 
were seized by the Turks." 

" The evacuation of Bouyoukdere was preceded by that 
of Phanaraki, Cavak and of Doumoushdere, of Bazekioi 
(16 April) and Avaskioi of the District of Derkos. 
The inhabitants of these villages too were unable to 
take any of their belongings with them and in some 
villages, as in Domoushdere, they were compelled to 
sign a declaration that they abandoned their villages of 
their own accord and from fear." 

" On the first of June the inhabitants of Pyrgos 
(of the District of Derkos), consisting of 3,000 persons, 
were ordered at night to abandon their villages and men, 
women with their babies, children, and old people, in 
want of everything, after trudging for three hours on 
foot, reached Bouyoukdere, whence they were taken to 
the interior of the country and compelled to settle in the 
Turkish villages of Ik-Kiol and Soulio, of the District 
of Nicaea, and forbidden to go to Constantinople, where 
many of them had relatives and friends. The deporta- 
tions took place exactly at the time of their cabbage 
harvest, which product was afterwards seized by the 
Turkish refugees along with all their properties." 

" On June 4, the evacuation of Ivoutah, — an island 



42 PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 

in the sea of Marmora, — was ordered and its in- 
habitants, consisting of 1,800 persons, were deported to 
the interior of Anatolia. The old men and children 
were settled in the Turkish village of Soussouglou, but 
being without any shelter, and, deprived of everything, 
they endure the worst of sufferings; the rest were sent 
to the village of Michalitsi of the district of Nicaea, 
undergoing all the consequences of weather changes. 
Their properties and houses were seized by the free- 
booters of the neighboring community of Arapis, who 
established themselves in their homes." 

The inhabitants of Kalolimnos, another island in the 
sea of Marmora, were compelled, within a few hours, 
to abandon their island, without being able to take 
anything with them, and were sent to the villages of 
Michalitsi and Terbekioi near Broussa, suffering ter- 
ribly from hunger. The number of the Greeks thus 
deported was about 1,440. 

On June 15, the evacuation of Prokonnesos (an island 
also in the sea of Marmora) was ordered, its inhabi- 
tants being deported to Panormo and Ouktsoukiol 
(the railway station of Panormo) and from there to 
different parts of the interior, and exposed to various 
cHmatic changes. I have been informed to-day (June 
26) that the villages of Peramos, Sighi, Triglia, Ehgmoi 
and Peristasis were evacuated and their inhabitants 
taken to the Asiatic coast of the sea of Marmora. Ac- 
cording to other information the evacuation of Moudania 
is imminent, as well as that of the villages of Myrio- 
phyto. In a word, we have here to do with the evacuation 
of the whole coast of the sea of Marmora. 

According to another report of the Legation at Con- 
stantinople, No. 5171, dated September 8, 1915 (Minis- 
terial Archives, No. 10938), all the villages of the Dis- 
trict of Kirk-Kilisse have been emptied of their Greek 
inhabitants. The following is a detailed statement: 

" Skepastos, a village of the District of Kirk-Kilisse, 



PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 43 

the inhabitants of which, consisting of 3,000 persons, 
were taken, on September 6, toward Redosto. Sophides, 
a village of the district of Vizye, which is inhabited by 
4,000 persons, was evacuated likewise on the 8th of the 
same month in the usual cruel manner." 

" Samacovo, also of the district of Vizye, and the seat 
of the Metropolitan, had its inhabitants, consisting of 
5,000 persons, deported on the same day." 

" Tourlia and St. Stephano of the district of Vizye, 
which villages had a population of 3,150 persons, were 
surrounded by Turkish gangs and no inhabitant is now 
left there." 

" Skopos, of the District of Kirk-Kilisse, was sur- 
rounded by the Turks, and its inhabitants, consisting of 
6,000 persons, were sent to various places, after being 
compelled to pay to the Turkish Comitadjis 80 Turk- 
ish pounds. The Government officials imposed a fine of 
from 20 to 30 Turkish pounds on Jewish merchants on 
the ground that they had violated the blockade of the 
village." 

These brief and dry extracts from reports, supple- 
mented from other more recent sources, prove that the 
Greeks, almost without exception, have been deported. 
The regions, such as Thrace, the coast of the sea of 
Marmora, that of the Hellespont and Bosphorus, and the 
littoral of the Black Sea, which have been completely 
denuded of their Greek population, were noted for their 
flourishing condition in commerce, education, civilization 
and wealth. Having been smitten so heavily by the 
Germano-Turks, they have been to-day transformed into 
smoking ruins, upon which Turkish immigrants dance, 
an element entirely foreign to these Hellenic sites. A 
mere glance on the map will show the magnitude of the 
catastrophe. 

To sum up, there were destroyed eleven towns and 
villages in the district of Gallipoli, having a Greek popu- 
lation of 24,636 inhabitants; seven towns in that of 



44 PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 

Broussa with a Greek population of 14,632; eight vil- 
lages in that of Bosphorus with a Greek population of 
5,500 ; three villages in that of Myriophyto with a Greek 
population of 2,210; the town of Dardanelles with a 
Greek population of 3,300; the town of Kemelik, and 
lastly thirteen towns and villages of the coast of the 
sea of Marmora with a Greek population of 23,450. 

The Germano-Turks have not omitted any form of 
cruelty in order to crush the Greek populations, whose 
houses they have plundered and burned in order to 
leave no trace of their existence. 

Official consular reports also prove the crimes which 
have been committed against the Greek populations of 
Trebizond, Kerasounda, Amissos (Samsoun) and Cy- 
donia (Aivah), and extracts from these reports appear 
below. 



CHAPTER II 

TREBIZOND 

A REPORT transmitted through the Greek Legation at 
Petrograd, No. 1570, dated August 30, 1916 (Ministerial 
Archives, No. 9067), runs as follows: 

"On April 15 the Greek inhabitants of the sixteen 
villages of the district of Vazelon and Trebizond, were 
ordered bv the Turkish authorities to proceed to the 
interior of ArgyropoHs (Ghioumoushane), but fear- 
ing that thev might be slain on the way, like the Ar- 
menians, theV abandoned their homes and took refuge m 
the woods, hoping that they would be saved by a quick 
advance of the Russian army. Of these refugees, con- 
sisting of 6,000 persons, six hundred and fifty took 
refuge in the Monastery of Vazelon, where they found 
one hundred and thirty refugees from Trebizond; twelve 
hundred hid in a big cave near the village of Kounaka, 
and the remainder dispersed in the woods and various 
hiding places. All their property was looted and their 
houses plundered by the Turkish army. Those who had 
taken refuge in the cave of the village of Kounaka, 
surrendered themselves because they were starving; but 
twentv-six women and girls in order to escape dishonor 
threw^ themselves into a river near the village ot 
Gephyra, and notwithstanding the efforts of their com- 
panions to save them, they were all drowned. From 
April 5 to July 5, Turkish brutality burst out m all 

its savagery." j a 

The number of those who were tortured and murdered 
by the Turks can be counted by the hundreds. "After 
the advance of the Russian army," says an eye-witness, 
" I was the first to reach Argyropchs (Ghioumoushane). 

45 



46 PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 

The sight that presented itself before my eyes was hor- 
rible. Everything had been destroyed, both in the Mon- 
astery and in the villages, except that the Turks did 
not set fire to the place. Five decomposed bodies of 
Greeks were lying unburied in the court-yard of the 
Monastery, one of them being that of the priest Con- 
stantine of the village of Thersa. Five other corpses 
were found in the interior of the Monastery. In one of 
the rooms there was lying the body of the twenty-year- 
old girl Kyriaki from the village of Thersa, naked and 
beheaded, with a wound on the chest, there being every 
indication that rape was committed upon her. According 
to the admission of two Christians that have escaped, 
the unfortunate girl had been seized in the forest along 
with others by nine Turks and had been carried into the 
Monastery. After she had been outraged she had been 
killed by them." 



CHAPTER III 
KERASOUNDA 

A REPORT of the Greek Legation at Constantinople 
dated February 7, 1917, No. 119 (Ministerial Archives, 
No 4901), concerning the district of Kerasounda, where 
the' Greek element surpassed the other nationahties, 
both in commerce and wealth, states as follows: 

"Accordino" to rehable information received irom 
Kerasounda the condition of the Greeks of that district 
is very lamentable. After the occupation of Trebizond 
by the Russians, tens of thousands of Turkish immi- 
grants swept down into the district of Kerasounda, 
where they plundered the Greek villages and departed, 
leaving behind them cholera and typhus fever. By order 
of the Governor of Trebizond, a new persecution ot the 
Greeks began, the wealthiest of them being arrested 

and expelled." ^ ^ o 4.1, i;f 

"When the deportation of the Greeks from the lit- 
toral of the Black Sea was decided upon by the Turkish 
General Staff, it was carried out by the Governor of 
Trebizond and his agents in the most cruel manner 
In spite of the assurances given by the Commander ot 
the Third Military Corps, the evacuation of the vil- 
lages was completed within twenty-four hours, and the 
deported Greeks, accompanied by a strong escort ot 
gendarmes, were not permitted to take with them either 
food, clothes or baggage, and spent the night in the 
open air under a pelting rain." 

" The deported peoples of the sea villages were not 
allowed to communicate with their Bishop. After their 
departure the Turkish officials and private individuals 
pillaged their properties. The evacuated villages num- 
bered thirty-eight and the population was 23,000. 

47 



CHAPTER IV 
AMISSOS (SAMSOUN) 

Various reports, transmitted with a communication of 
the Greek Legation at Constantinople, No. 5-48 (Min- 
isterial Archives, No. 5079), dated January 14 and 29, 
and February 7 and 29, 1917, describe the ruin of 
Samsoun and of the Greek villages of the littoral of the 
Black Sea. The following are some extracts from these 
reports : 

" Eighty of the wealthiest Greeks of Samsoun, hav- 
ing been arrested without any reason whatever, were 
imprisoned on December 27, 1916; they were not allowed 
to communicate with their families in order to secure 
clothing, and were taken next morning very early to 
the interior of the country as if they were the worst of 
criminals. The foremost Greeks shared the same fate. 
Being deprived of everything, they will not be able to 
stand such privations and calamities. On the same 
day the city was encircled by the Turkish army, and all 
the population was called to the square of Upper Sam- 
soun (Cadikioi) in order that, as was said, they might 
listen to the Governor who was to speak to the public. 
In that manner they were all seized and imprisoned in 
the barracks. The same thing also happened in the vil- 
lage of Eliazkioi. The men were thus without money 
and both men and women without extra clothing. The 
old and sick were taken along, being assisted by their 
relatives. The Turks did not spare even women who had 
just given birth to children nor the babies themselves. 
In such a condition they followed their executioners on 
foot, all night long, through the snow-covered mountains. 
This tragic scene had the aspect of a herd of cattle being 

48 



PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 49 

led to the slaughter-house. The children were in vain 
crying for bread and water. We do not know where 
they rested that day after a journey lasting twelve 
hours, nor where so many thousand people found bread. 
Undoubtedly tliey slept in the open air and had nothing 
to eat next day." 

" In the meantime horrible things happened. As soon 
as Basil Arnaoutoglou, a merchant of Samsoun, was ar- 
rested, his 19-year-old daughter, Ourania, fell dead. The 
17-year-old Euphrosini Garouphahdou, whose brother 
works in the labor battahon in the evacuated section of 
Cadikioi (Samsoun), having gone back to her home and 
not finding there her widowed mother, — who had just 
before been deported with the others, — became insane. 
As communication with the evacuated part of the city 
was not possible, the sick who could not be trans- 
ported, died of starvation in a few days. We buried 
a woman who had died two days before, and we found 
babies dead in their cradles. After the deportations, 
the Turks gave themselves up to plundering. Thus 
jewelry, furniture, clothing, cooking utensils, and every- 
thing that was found in the homes was pillaged and 
sold in the streets." 

" On January 1st Turkish pohcemen having gone into 
the church hunted out the rich and prominent Greeks, 
who had remained there. These they seized during the 
day, and on the following day sent them to the interior 
together with others who had been seized in other villages. 
Unfortunately we cannot fix the exact number of the de- 
ported persons, but it is certain that more than forty 
leading Greeks were arrested. The city now looks like 
a cemetery, since all the shops in the business part of 
it are closed. We are unable to find out where these 
persons were taken to and where they now are, but we are 
positively informed that those who had been deported from 
Upper Samsoun reached Kavak the first night in a bad 
condition; there they buried their dead; from that place 



50 PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 

they were taken to Kaphzan, in the Province of Sebastia, 
a distance of 80 kilometers from Samsoun, having made 
the journey in four days, without food. During this 
journey many died from hunger, cold and hardships. 
I have just been informed that there are many dead 
in the church at Kaphzan. Notwithstanding the promises 
which had been given that the authorities would settle 
those deported in the Christian villages near Kaphzan, all 
of them have been sent to Tsoroum, in the Province of 
Angora. On the way the girls of Cadikioi, being sure 
of the fate which awaited them, sang the song, " Fare- 
well, poor world; farewell, sweet life." What will hap- 
pen at Tsoroum? How will so many thousands of people 
live in the midst of a severe winter, deprived of every- 
thing? This is a riddle which past experience can only 
solve." 

" On January 10, 11 and 13, other arrests were also 
made, the arrested persons being likewise sent to the 
interior and thus the Greek community was completely 
disorganized; its schools were transformed into barracks, 
its shops were closed, property was plundered, and the 
richest villages of the district were burned. Thus the 
Greeks, whose misfortunes are beyond all description, 
are now in a most wretched condition." 

Another report contains the following details: 

" From the day that Rafet Pasha came to Samsoun, 
the whole place has been turned into a hell. He is 36 
years old, fanatic, passionate, and, to a high degree, a 
hater of Greeks. To him alone are due the various 
cases of arson and of deportation, which I have described 
in many of my reports. Having left Bitlis three months 
ago where he had been promoted to the grade of Pasha, 
he came here, with full powers. In a short time he has 
become the scourge of the country and the tyrant of 
the Christians." 

"On January 17 and 18, the arrests and the deporta- 
tions to the interior were resumed; therefore, Samsoun 



PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 51 

is in danger of losing all its male population. About 
fifty Greeks have been deported up to now from the 
town of Tsarshamba; the day before yesterday the 
Greek merchants of Paphra were deported." 

" By order of the Government the shops of the Greek 
merchants deported from Samsoun have been plun- 
dered; from the store of Soukiouroglou alone merchan- 
dise to the value of 5,000 Turkish pounds has been 
pillaged. Out in the open country the Christians 
undergo sufferings the like of which one cannot find even 
in the darkest pages of history. The army and the 
Turks of the neighboring country enter the Christian 
villages, take away the cattle and beasts of burden, 
clothing, furniture, cooking utensils, flour, coverlets and 
all the other movable property in the Christian villages, 
and afterwards they set fire to the houses of the Chris- 
tians and send them into the interior of the country, half 
naked, without food, without money, and on foot, over 
snow-covered mountains." 

" Twenty-eight other villages have been burnt within 
a week from January 15th up to the present tune, 
excluding those that were burnt during the month of 
December. The women and children have been sent 
and continue to be sent on foot in the midst of rain and 
snow to the Provinces of Sebastia and Angora. Babies, 
girls, women, in child-birth or pregnant, sick people and 
old men are pushed from place to place; they spend 
their nights in Khans (Turkish inns) without bread or 
any other food; they sleep naked on the manure piles or 
on the floor, and although many of them contract pneu- 
monia or other diseases, on the following day, in the 
same manner, they are driven on under tlie lash. Many 
children having lost their parents are scattered in the 
mountains or in the Turkish villages; others die on the 
way of starvation, cold and hardships, and are buried in 
the mountains or are left a prey to the wild beasts. 
Those that survive their sufferings, after a journey last- 



52 PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 

ing many days, are scattered throughout the Turkish 
villages of the Province of Angora, where, in the course 
of time, they will perish." 

" Already dreadful news is reaching us about the fate 
of the deported j^eople ; the rich men of Paphra have been 
sent to the Province of Castamone, while the merchants 
of Samsoun and Tsarshamba have been distributed among 
the villages of Tsoroum, Sounghourlou, Medjitouzou 
and Inglibi." 

" Those first deported from Cadikioi and Eliazkioi 
reached the top of Mount Tsoumbouz without food on 
the first night; the next day they arrived in Kavak, the 
third day at Kara-Dag and on the fourth they came to 
Kaphzan. During these four days they were without 
food. On their arrival at Tsoroum, they were scattered 
in various Turkish villages, where they are dying from 
cold and hunger by hundreds. We do not know exactly 
the number of the persons who have been deported, but 
on a rough estimate they exceed 20,000, and the number 
is increasing every day. Arson, plunderings and crimes 
continue in a savage manner, and the deprivations and 
hardships add new victims daily." 

A third report states as follows: 

" Vehaedin, a special official of the Ministry of the 
Interior, came recently from Constantinople. He is in 
harshness emulating Rafet Pasha, the special emissary 
of the Ministry of War, for he prepares the lists of the 
persons to be deported, and the latter carries out the 
decisions which are reached. Thus, this week, another 
group of Greeks has been deported to the interior and 
Samsoun is in danger of being left without men." 

" The whole male population of Paphra also, where 
Vehaedin had gone, has been sent to Voivat, and the 
Turkish Government has ordered the closing of the 
tobacco warehouses and prohibited any sale of tobacco. 
The said Vehaedin, after having finished his sinister 
mission in Paphra, went the day before yesterday to 



PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 53 

Oinoi, Tsarshamba and Phatza in order to supervise the 
execution of his program." 

" In the meantime, Rafet Pasha continues his work 
of annihilation. The villages which had escaped the 
previous destruction have been burned and their in- 
habitants sent to the interior. Eight villages of Paphra, 
which produced the choicest tobacco in Turkey, were 
burned and their Greek inhabitants sent to the Province 
of Angora, while the Greek inhabitants of eight other 
villages of Samsoun have been sent to the interior and 
Turkish refugees have been settled in their houses. To 
these the Turks have promised to give title deeds for the 
houses and lands." 

" At this moment smoke and flames are seen in the 
mountains; undoubtedly fire has been set to other vil- 
lages. According to positive information, all the Greek 
population outside of Kerasunda has been also sent 
to the interior towards Kol-Hissar and Hamidie. If 
one considers the high and rugged mountains through 
which the deported women and children of the above 
villages are compelled to pass in the midst of a very heavy 
winter, one's mind is appalled and his heart is wrung." 

The fourth report is as follows: 

" We awaited anxiously the return from Constanti- 
nople of the American Vice-Consul of Samsoun, from 
whom a generous and substantial contribution of money 
was expected. Unfortunately, these hopes were dis- 
appointed, the excuse being given that America cannot 
send money to Constantinople, the Turkish Government 
having prohibited the sending of any money to Turkey. 
One can picture to himself the tragical situation of this 
unfortunate population, which is deprived both of money 
and food." 

" Recently, the tobacco warehouses of the Greek mer- 
chants which had been seized were freed and the sale of 
tobacco by representatives has been permitted. Still, 
the tobacco of the villages, which have been evacuated 



54 PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 

without being burnt, such as that of Ehazkioi, Adreanta, 
Tekekioi, Cadikioi, etc., has been put to auction by the 
Government, and in a few days, it will be sold to the 
highest bidder; the proceeds of this sale will be retained 
by the Government, while the owners of the tobacco are 
dying in the interior from hunger." 

" The deportations of men from Samsoun continue. 
Not a single man is left in Paphra, while the women and 
children who have been left there are suffering dread- 
fully for lack of everything. The patriarchal family of 
Haji-Ioannou Gelkentzoglou, who is the founder and 
the pillar of the Greek community there, has been exter- 
minated ; his three sons, his grandchildren and his nephews 
have been sent to Castamoni, while he, a man of ninety 
years of age, who for forty years was a member both 
of the Municipal Council and the Court, and who has 
served the Government in various ways, has been de- 
ported, poor unfortunate, and is now temporarily living 
in Samsoun, though he is destined to die in the interior 
of the country'. The Gelkentzoglou family was one of 
the most prominent of our district." 

" The same things happened in the districts of Neo- 
Caesarea, of Phatza and of Tsarshamba. Consequently, 
if one takes into consideration that recently even those 
who have paid the exemption fee have been taken into 
the army, one can conclude that no male person has been 
left in the place." 

" In the meantime, the destruction continues. The 
evacuated villages of Ada-Tepe, Yelidje, Karaghiol, have 
been burned." 

" Near Kourouk-Koktje, where the military camp of 
the Pasha has been established, the villages have suffered 
severely; many women and children have been killed, 
the village of Erikli, among other villages, has been 
burned, and the population has been sent to the interior 
of the country in very bad condition." 

" Worse things have happened at Paphra, where dur- 



PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 55 

ing the last few weeks twenty other villages with their 
churches and schools have been set on fire and after 
their movable property was plundered and their im- 
movable property burned, the whole population was sent 
to the interior of the country." 

" The damage caused by the burning of these villages, 
which produced the choicest tobacco of Turkey, may be 
valued at many million Turkish pounds, and the Otto- 
man Government will not be long in feeling the injury 
done to the interests of the State." 

"But at all events the damage has already been done 
and its results continue; the villages have been burned, 
and in the Province of Angora the inhabitants are dying 
by the thousands. I am sure not one will survive." 

" The prominent men of Samsoun are already dying 
from diseases in the town of Tsoroum, Aletsa, Soun- 
ghourlou, and Medjit-Ouzou. The Greek peasants have 
been distributed by thousands among the surrounding 
Turkish villages, where they are living in the stables and 
barns of the Turks. Deprived of bread, clothing and 
coverlets, in the midst of a severe winter, with everything 
at an excessive price, in the total lack of medicines 
against contagious diseases, they are dying in crowds." 

" All this horrible treatment has one object, namely, 
the annihilation of the Greeks in Turkey, who must dis- 
appear as have the Armenians. Already one-fourth of 
the deported population has died, and the same fate is 
awaiting the thirty thousand persons who have been 
deported from our District (Sanjak)." 



CHAPTER V 
CYDONIA (AIVALI) 

The reports submitted with the communications of the 
Greek Legation at Constantinople, dated April 24 and 
May 1, 1917, No. 662 (Ministerial Archives, No. 5219), 
describe the destruction of the city as follows: 

" Before giving an account of the contents of these 
reports it is necessary to state briefly what sort of city 
Cydonia was up to that time. It was a city containing 
over 30,000 inhabitants who, with the exception of a 
hundred Turks, were all Greeks; it had a gymnasium 
(college) — whose diplomas had been recognized by the 
University of Athens since the year 1884; — three gram- 
mar schools for boys, three for girls, and a higher institu- 
tion for girls, numbering in all 2,275 pupils, and a school 
budget of 4,000 Turkish pounds. The city contained 
5,500 houses and 800 shops, the country property con- 
sisted of 60,000 (Greek) acres of olive trees, of farms, 
etc. The inhabitants owned besides 24 oil factories using 
steam power and 50 using horse power, 80 tanneries, 15 
soap factories, three windmills and many quarries of 
ochre." 

" Besides, there were in the city 11 churches, 5 chapels, 
72 country chapels, 4 cemeteries, 2 monasteries owning 
large estates, and an excellent hospital. In all, the value 
of both the private property and that belonging to the 
Greek community, amounted to ten million Turkish 
pounds. The annual oil production was 6,500,000 okas. 
The Turkish Government collected from the oil tithe 
alone 52,000 Turkish pounds annually. The shipping 
activity was proportionate. About 600 steamboats and 

56 



PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 57 

2,000 vessels entered the harbor of Cydonia (Aivali) 
every year." 

One of the above mentioned reports describes the pas- 
sage, through Broussa, of the unfortunate inhabitants of 
Cydonia, who had been deported, as follows: 

" I will not attempt to depict the pitiful spectacle 
presented by these unfortunate persons. I can only say 
it was a jumble of large and small skeletons begging for 
pity. This group has been marching for forty-five days 
and is to march a good many days to come, inasmuch 
as it is destined to settle in Yeni-Chehir and Biledjik. 
They in vain implored to be allowed to stay here, if not 
permanently, at least for a few days in order to rest, 
because many of them cannot walk as a result of fatigue 
and hardships. Their sufferings on the way are truly 
incredible. Over 180 of them died on the way, their 
bodies being thrown into ditches; others, half -dead, were 
left in the middle of the road, and women, after giving 
birth to children, abandoned their babies and followed 
the other wayfarers. I had the misfortune to follow 
closely from the beginning all the phases of this accursed 
persecution, but in no case have I seen a harsher atti- 
tude on the part of the persecutors who were indeed 
utterly insensate. The number already here consists of 
500 to 600 families, and others are coming every day; 
according to the information given by the latter, those 
that are to follow are more numerous than those who 
have already arrived, consisting of from ten to thirteen 
thousand persons. In the village of Tahtali and Yailad- 
jik of the district of Broussa, 200 families have been 
already settled." 

Another report states as follows; 

" For some days the rumor spread that the Greeks of 
Cydonia, who have been deported, as have been many 
others from other places, are to make their homes here, 
while, according to another report, they are simply going 
through here in order that they may be settled in the 



58 PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 

villages of Yeni-Chehir and Biledjik. The place where 
they are to settle is not known exactly, because the au- 
thorities take great care that the displacements of the 
Greeks be carried out as quietly as possible, but I was 
informed to-day by a Greek soldier (serving in the Turk- 
ish Army) that a good many families from Cydonia are 
encamped in a plain about an hour's distance from 
Broussa and that they begged him to notify me that 
those families which are on their way to Biledjik are 
dying from hunger and in need of speedy assistance." 

" About twenty-five inhabitants of Cydonia came to 
me in a pitiful condition and told me their unheard of 
sufferings with sobs and tears. According to their nar- 
rative, the persecutions began the week before Palm 
Sunday; they continued the entire Holy Week and were 
finally intensified on Good Friday; they had been ex- 
pelled in small groups and were only allowed to carry 
with them some clothing which they were selling on their 
way in order to buy bread; furthermore the gendarmes 
on the way had been demanding money from them. I 
asked them to give me information about the Bishop 
of Cydonia, and a woman who was a neighbor of the 
Bishop told me that she saw him for the last time on 
Good Friday in front of the Bishop's home selhng his 
brasier to some Turks, and that he told her that he was 
intending to go to Magnesia, the city of his birth; I infer 
from this that he has been left free to select his place 
of residence. According to their story, the number of 
the deported inhabitants of Cydonia and its suburbs is 
from thirty-five to forty thousand ; that from the time of 
their deportation up to to-day 120 persons of the group 
that has come here, have died, particularly of hunger and 
hardships. My informants belong to a section composed 
of 100 families settled in the villages of Yailadjik and 
Tahtali which are situated two hours distant from 
Broussa; they came here to ask my aid in their distress 
both in their own behalf and in that of the others, and 



PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 59 

in particular to ask me for bread because many of them 
had not eaten for 24 hours, I immediately procured, to 
the best of my ability, the bread which was needed, and 
I took steps with the proper authorities so that they 
might be provided with bread cards which are absolutely 
necessary in order to receive bread. It seems that they 
will be settled in various parts of the country and many 
of them will be estabhshed in the surrounding villages." 



CHAPTER VI 
CONDITION OF THE DEPORTED PEOPLE 

The picture of the tragedy which has just been de- 
scribed would be imperfect, if one did not glance at the 
condition of those unfortunate Greeks, w^ho, having been 
deported, are wandering about the mountains and plains 
of the interior of Anatoha, this country which is so inhos- 
pitable to them. The misfortunes which these victims 
of Teutonic Kultur and Turkish savagery are under- 
going cannot be paralleled even in the darkest epochs. 
Deported, insulted, ill-treated, they are compelled to ab- 
jure their faith. Each becomes the spectator of the de- 
struction of his neighbor and all of them together witness 
daily outrages committed upon their wives and daugh- 
ters. They are dying of starvation every day. Who 
is going to give them medicine? Who will bury their 
dead? 

This situation is pictured in a report dated July 28th 
and transmitted through a communication of the Greek 
Legation at Constantinople, No. 5832 (Ministerial 
Archives, No. 12092) which is as follows: 

" In the station of Ak-Sakal we found 200 refugees 
from Madytos and 150 from Krithia, who, after the 
evacuation of Mehanion, were scattered in the grounds 
of the above-mentioned station without food or water. 
In the station of Oktsi-Ghiol we found 250 other inhabi- 
tants of Krithia and Madytos who for fifty days have 
lived under a burning sun and in the humidity of the 
night, in a desperate condition. As to the refugees of the 
district of Prokonnesos who have been scattered in the 
district of Sousourlouk and Baloukeser, neither is their 
number known nor the names of the villages in which 

60 



PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 61 

they have been settled. A large number of refugees 
are scattered in Baloukeser, Sousourlouk, Kepsout, Sin- 
dirh and in other Turkish villages. Many starving and 
half -naked women are begging for bread and money; 
their ragged clothing, which they are compelled to hold 
tightly together to prevent its slipping off from their 
shoulders, barely covers their skeleton bodies. I seem 
to see a picture of Dante's Inferno, for he, while 
traversing the Inferno, saw ghosts with only skin and 
bones. What he saw in imagination, one can actually 
see here. A few days ago a woman outside the station 
of Baloukeser died of starvation. Her httle hungry chil- 
dren who thought that their mother was asleep, were 
trying to wake her up and crying and begging for bread. 
"The condition of the refugees of Prokonnesos is 
becoming, from day to day, more horrible. Being turned 
out of the stables "^ of the Turks where they store away 
their straw, they are now living in the open air. With 
tears they beg for shelter and bread, and instead of it 
conversion to Mohammedanism and dishonor are held out 
before them. 

" Hunger, the heat of the sun and the dampness of the 
night take daily toll of these unfortunate refugees. 
Within the last few days 50 refugees have died at Ivrik 
and every day more are dying, some being buried without 
religious rites." 

Another report from Artaki transmitted in a com- 
munication of the Greek Legation at Constantinople, 
No. 884, dated March 4, 1916 (Ministerial Archives, 
No. 14205) states as follows: 

" The condition of the unfortunate refugees is inde- 
scribably desperate. Not having anything to sell in 
order to buy bread, women, old people and children, 
naked and barefooted, wander about the fields in order 
to gather grass for food. Others from morning until 
evening, braving the cold and damp, search along the 
whole shore, not excluding even the mouths of the sewers, 



62 PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 

in order to find shellfish, mussels, clams, limpets, etc., so 
as to appease their hunger with them. Others less ven- 
turesome wander about the different shops, coffee-houses, 
saloons, and private houses, from morning until mid- 
night, trying by their heart-rending entreaties, which 
would melt even a heart of stone, to procure something 
from some charitable person. In fact, whoever goes 
around in the Christian quarter after sunset can hear the 
pitiful and tearful voices of the orphans and others beg- 
ging for charity. But notwithstanding the entreaties of 
the unfortunate refugees, it is doubtful if they will all 
succeed in thus appeasing the hunger of their unfortunate 
families. 

" I was an eye-witness to the following incident. 
George Kourbetis from Gallipoli, with his wife Katherine 
and his 16-year-old son, not having tasted food for a 
week, were lying on their backs, looking up to the sky, 
hardly able to move even their hps and waiting, moment 
by moment, the most cruel of deaths, that by starva- 
tion. All means were employed to bring them to life 
but it did not succeed for all of them, for Katherine 
died on the 16th of January. The same day a woman 
from Madytos came and informed us in an excited man- 
ner of the death by starvation of John and Athena 
Hadgi-Anathasiou Dagdeleni, who left a 17-year-old 
daughter naked and ill. 

" On January 19th, Olga Apostolou from Gallipoli, 
sick and weakened by starvation, having placed her un- 
baptized baby to her breast to suck, fainted from com- 
plete exhaustion. A woman from the vicinity, no one 
knows how long after, found the woman unconscious 
and her baby dead. 

" On January 25th, Apostolos Pheidaros from Mady- 
tos, aged 60 years, died from starvation. Sofia Atha- 
nasiou, Sivri-Kiolafe, 7 years old, and Serafim Evangelou 
Datsos, 14 months old, met with the same fate. All this 
happened in Panormo where refugees are considered as 



PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 63 

being much better off than those in the interior. If in 
Panormo three or four die of hunger how many, I 
wonder, die in the interior? " 

A last report from Artaki which was transmitted in a 
communication of the Greek Legation at Constantinople, 
No. 884 (Ministerial Archives, No. 14205), confirmed 
these sad events in the following terms : 

" The Greek refugees are only shadows of human 
beings. The strong feeling of homesickness which pos- 
sesses them and which is daily expressed by the words: 
' Let us go home and die there,' the hardships which 
they endure during the deportations, the fatigues which 
they undergo from long walks in their search for food 
and, generally, the various privations, have taken away 
from them every drop of vitality and has withered them 
completely. Recently, the consequences of the winter 
and the rains, the lying on the ice-cold ground where 
they had to sleep, for they had sold even necessarj^ cloth- 
ing, mattresses and coverlets, the excessive prices and the 
lack of bread, all contributed to the frightful increase in 
mortality through which the cemeteries were filled. The 
priests were tired of burying people, and the Christians 
refused to transport the dead any more. Therefore, the 
large communities have been compelled to hire four men 
for the transportation of the dead ..." 



CHAPTER VII 

STATISTICS OF DEPORTATIONS 

It has been under such harsh and cruel conditions that 
thousands of Greeks have been transferred from one end 
of the Ottoman Empire to the other. According to a 
rough calculation the number of those deported amounts 
to 240,000, as is indicated by the table of statistics 
shown below to which should be added those who have 
been deported from the interior of Asia Minor to other 
places, but whose deportation did not come under the 
controlling observation of the Greek Consular authorities. 
It should be noted furthermore that the crimes and per- 
secutions continue, increasing day by day the number of 
victims of the Germano-Turkish savagery. 

STATISTICAL TABLE OF THE DEPORTED GREEK 
POPULATIONS * 

DISTRICT OF GALLIPOLI DISTRICT OF BROUSSA 

Gallipoli 3,360 Sighi 1,823 

Angelochori 1,885 Triglia 7,000 

Kavakli 236 Eligrni 1,370 

Taiphir 1,540 Arnoutkioi 210 

Plaghiarion 1,900 Yenikioi 633 

Pergaz 810 Mesepolis 1,265 

5fenikioi 2,370 Paladari 2,333 

Bahir 1,600 



Madytos 7,345 14,634 

Krithia 2,320 DISTRICT OF PROPONTIS 

Galatas 1,270 (MARMORA) 

Prokonnesos 4,000 

24,636 Proastia 2,000 

* The numbers indicate the total of the deported Greek inhabitants of each 
town or village. 

64 



PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 65 



Jvlazaki 250 

Aphthoni 1,800 

Palatia 3,000 

Gallimis 1,800 

Koutalis 1,800 

iPasalimani 2,000 

Haloni 2,100 

Skoupia , 2,100 

Kouklia 1,300 

VoTreion 1,300 



23,450 



DISTRICT OF BOUYOUK- 
DERE 

Pyrgos 1,212 

Bouyoukdere 1,341 

Yeni-Machala 1,325 

Dounioushdere 606 

Avaskioi 310 

Hagiasmati 482 

Steni 

Nymphai , 73 

Saphras 412 

Haghioi Pantes 95 

Kephilikioi 312 

Kirits-Bournou 180 

Kalpha 748 

7,096 

DISTRICT OF THE DAR- 
DANELLES 

Dardanelles 3,300 

DISTRICT OF ISMID 

(NICOMEDIA) 

Armoutli 920 

Yali-Tsiflik 1,496 

Arnaoutkioi 950 

Tseshair 810 



DISTRICT OF CYZIKOS 

Mousadja 188 

Havouzi 262 

Koursouli 405 

Castelli 860 

Michanion 1,745 

Peramos 3,500 



6,960 



DISTRICT OF MYRIO- 
PHYTOS 

Yenikioi 485 

Loupida 1,250. 

Yioldjiki 475 



2,210 



DISTRICT OF KADIKIOI 
(CHALCEDON) 

Arvanitochori , . 1,104 



DISTRICT OF KIRK- 
KILISSE 

Skopos 6,000 

Samakovon 5,000 

Skepastos 3,000 

Sophides 4,000 

Tourlia 3,000 

St. Stephano 150 



4,176 



21,150 



66 PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 



DISTRICT OF HERAKI.IA 

Examillion 1,260 

Heraklitsa 1,250 

Kesani 1,100 

Ivrik-Tepe 2,256 

Soultankioi 1,315 

Ouzounkioprou 540 

Kavadjik 445 

Hidirkioi 157 

JCaradjali 26 

Salakioi 236 

Kirkioi 455 

Varnitsa 159 

Hadji- Yeri 1,250 

Megarisi 287 

pazardere 475 

Saklidere 310 

Kouroudjouk 450 

Beyendik 1,366 

Malkotsi 500 

Pharasli 502 

Karabounar 450 

Kasipasha 341 



15,130 



DISTRICT OF DIDYMO- 
TICHO 

Lili 520 

Dogandji 660 

Tsiphlikioi 269 



Karali ^86 

yiaoup 533 

Kavakli 714 

Kourtikas 622 

Ivarahamza 281 

Tsali 389 

Yenikioi 592 

Eskikioi 700 



5,566 



DISTRICT OF SMYRNA 

Ano and Kato Dcmird- 

jili 6,000 

Transa and Tsesner . . . 5,000 

Sevdikioi 3,500 

Demirdjik 570 



15,070 



DISTRICT OF CYDONIA 
(AIVALI) 

Cydonia (with the refu- 
gees from Moschonisi, 
Yenitsarochori, etc. ) . 40,000 

DISTRICT OF TREBIZOND 

Sixteen villages from the 

District of Vazelon . . 6,000 



PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 67 



DISTRICT OF KERAS- 
OUNDA 

The number of the deported 
Greeks up to January, 1917, 
is 22,356. The following is 
the list of the villages evacu- 
ated up to that time: 

SUB-DISTRICT OF 
TRIPOLI 

Tripoli 3,000 

Aslanik 179 

Agalik-Maden 279 

Gozokai 460 

Erseil-Maden 660 

Kara-Erik 472 

Kara-Kaya 157 

Kepeklisa 1,035 

Kizil-Kaya 274 

Kirlik-Maden 255 

Kara-Kiounei 227 

Monastiri 273 

Lahana-Maden 810 

Livadia 290 

Liamlatino 160 

Neochori 620 

Nial 340 

Armenochori 253 

Omalochori 550 

Palhan 180 



Papakli 650 

Peledjik 205 

Rakan 292 

Sak-Halva 270 

Soukouk-Dama 270 

Tienem-Roum 174 

Tsakaras 1,650 

Tselali (Mexen) 450 

Tsimahanton 180 

Koure-Peli 301 

SUB-DISTRICT OF 
KERASOUNDA 

Tsal 2,000 

Yolagaz 850 

Kassiopi 330 

Koush-Kaya 790 

Saraidjouk 340 



SUB-DISTRICT 
KIORELE 



OF 



Elevi 800 

Satou-Maden 580 

SUB-DISTRICT OF 
KIOVELE 

Eseli-Maden 1,750 



22,356 



68 PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 



DISTRICT OF SAMSOUN 

The number of the deported Greeks up to February, 1917, was 
30,000. All the Greek villages on the seacoast up to Aladjan 
have been evacuated. These villages are as follows : 



Assar-Agatz 

Kelkaya 

Devkeris 

Oxie 

Tsirahman 

Toighar 

Kovtse-Bounar 

Korkenlijatak 

Alankioi 

Kertme 

Karakiol 

Peklik 

Kavadouz 

Enghiz 

Yiagpasha 

Phoundoudjak 

Phouroundzoglou 

Ghiaglakcris 

Tekne-Bounar 

Karapetsin 

Tsimeli 

Kavadjik 

Tsinaragli 

Andreaton 

Kato-Tsinik 

Kiziloglan 

Kapa-Tsokour 

Sokou-Tsokour 

Kitsilar 

Yiagla 

Sihlim 

Outz-Bounar 

Kapou-Kayia 



Kizil-Ot 

Ano-Tsinik 

Ziganton 

Kohtse 

Trapezanli 

Tsiflik 

Kouloutsa-Poylan 

Taphlankioi 

Kodjadag 

Kishla 

Sari-Yourt 

Kesili 

Kizil-Ghiol 

Kerpisli 

Kestene-Aivan 

Tsal 

Tankarlou 

Siamlaton 

Tsamalan 

Tsimeli 

Yel-Kirigni 

Kazandjaton 

Seitanaton 

Kaman 

Bayirkioi 

Karatouzla 

Touzeren 

Ot-Kaya 

Alexi-Demirdji 

Agtsalan 

Yiar-Alti 

Kirezli 

Asmadjan 



PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 69 



Ot-Massia 

Aladjan 

Tsartak-Keris 

Kourtalan 

Avloudja 

Kodjalan 

Taptivek 

Kourouk-Kodje 

Deirmen-Kiounei 

Kestene-Saivan 

Kaya-Kiounei 

Tsevis-Tepe 

Touzkioi 

Sougouk-Bounar 

Kelogloulari 

Kelousaghi 

Ali-Bey 



Tsinaraglou 

Tekekioi 

Yielitse 

Ada-Tepe 

Karatoulou 

Bagadjak 

Dar-Bogaz 

Karadja-Kishla 

Kal-Pelen 

Tsourlar 

Pire-Yourt 

Oldjekler 

Karabounar 

Kouzalan 

Const anti-Oushaghi 

Kosetik 
Yirmen-Oushaghi 



Yilan-Oren 



APPENDIX A 

A confidential letter of the Turkish Government to the 
Governor of Smyrna.* 

May 14th, 1914. 

To THE GOVEENOE OF SmYENA : 

The subject Greeks who constitute the majority of the inhabi- 
tants of your district, are taking advantage of the present cir- 
cumstances to provoke a revolutionary movement, conducive to 
an intervention of the Great Powers. 

The Ottoman Greeks who live along the coast of the Vilayet of 
Smyrna are working day and night in order to succeed in the 
attainment of their " Grand Idea." There can therefore be no 
doubt that the existence of Ottoman Greeks in the Turkish Empire 
thus imbued with revolutionary ideas is fatal to the state, from the 
political and administrative point of view. 

It is imperative for political reasons that the Greeks dwelling 
along the coast of Asia Minor be compelled to evacuate their vil- 
lages in order to settle in the Vilayet of Erzerum and Chaldea. If 
they refuse to emigrate to the places assigned to them, you should 
issue verbal instructions to our Mussulman brothers so that they 
may, by all kinds of excesses, compel the Greeks to leave their 
homes of their own accord. 

Do not in this case forget to obtain from these emigrants dec- 
larations to the effect that they are leaving their hearths and 
homes of their own free will, so that no political complications 
may later result therefrom. 

The Chief of the Bureau of Correspondence, 

Ali Riza. 
The Minister of the Interior, 

TaLAAT BEY.f 

The Director of the Ministry of the Interior, 
Ibeahim Hilmi. 

* From Le Temps, July 20, 1916. 

t The present Prime Minister of Turkey. 

70 



APPENDIX B 

The following cablegram has been received by the 
Greek Legation at Washington from the Ministry of 
Foreign Affairs of Greece. 

Athens, May 13th, 1915. 

Many officers and soldiers of the Turkish army who have been 
captured by the AlHes and have arrived at Saloniki, upon being 
questioned, have told of the destruction of Hellenism in Turkey, 
begging that their names be not revealed for fear of reprisals on 
the part of the Turks against their famiHes. They declare in 
particular that Hellenism in Turkey has been dealt the most ter- 
rific blow that it has ever received since 1453. Three means have 
been used, general mobilization, requisitions and deportations. 

Up to the end of 1917 more than 200,000 Greeks between 15 
and 48 years of age were mobihzed. Large numbers of these have 
succumbed to maltreatment, famine, exposure and epidemics. 

The Hellenic populations that have been compelled to leave their 
homes in Thrace and Asia Minor number more than 1,500,000. 
With the exception of the Greek populations of Constantinople, 
Smyrna and some other cities, all the Greeks of Turkey are 
suffering martyrdom through deportations, outrages on women 
and starvation. 

Half of the deported populations have perished in consequence 
of ill-treatment, disease and famine. Many have committed sui- 
cide or have been massacred in the interior of Asia Minor. Those 
that remain are subjected to continual martyrdom as slaves or 
are forced to become Mohammedans. Turkish functionaries and 
officers declare that no Christian shall be left alive in Turkey 
unless he embraces Mohammedanism. 

A Greek doctor has been compelled, under threat of death, to 
circumcise 40 Greek soldiers who had turned Mohammedans in 
order to save their families. The confiscated fortunes of the 
deported Greeks surpass in value five billion francs. 

Officers have met in the provinces of Romia and Mosul prom- 
inent Greeks from Aivali that were formerly millionaires working 

71 



72 PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 

in rags on the roads and begging for food. " Smyrna," so an 
officer says, " is melting like a candle." Forty or fifty deaths occur 
every day among the Greeks in consequence of exhaustion and 
disease. Tiie Turks have deported 200 families from Tatavla in 
Constantinople. The streets of the large cities are lined with 
Greek orphans begging a living, in spite of the fact that the 
authorities are gathering them in Turkish schools in order to make 
them Mohammedans. Under these circumstances, the enslaved 
Greeks look toward the Allies and Venizelos as their only hope. 
The officers mentioned above affirm that up to the 17th of March, 
1915, Turkey, busied by her operations in the Caucasus, had left 
the protection of the Dardanelles to the 158th regiment alone. 
One battalion of this was stationed at Koum-Kale, another at 
Erenkioi and a third at Dardanelles. It was only on the 17th of 
March that a third division, hastily formed from troops of the 
garrisons of Constantinople and Adrianople, arrived. 

The return of Venizelos to power in August, 1915, disturbed the 
Turks so much that on the 10th of September the Turkish Gov- 
ernment ordered the Vali of Broussa to put a stop to the depor- 
tation of the Greek populations of Ghemlek and the country 
around it. The second retirement of Venizelos from office and 
the condemnation of Greece to a policy of inaction emboldened 
the Germano-Turks anew and they gave themselves up with fervor 
to the extermination of the enslaved Greeks. The national move- 
ment for union in Greece under the leadership of Venizelos has 
filled the martyred slaves with joy and hope, while it has inspired 
terror in the Turks who, realizing the disintegration of their 
army, feared the intervention of Greece. 



OBJECTS OF THE SOCIETY 

The American-Hellenic Society is organized for the 
general purpose of extending and encouraging among 
the cfzens of the United States of America !„ inter 
est m the cultural and political relations between the 
Un,ted States and Greece; and in particular to promote 
educational relationships, including the estabhshment of 
exchange professorships in the Universities of the 
United States and Greece, as a means to diffuse knowl- 
edge of the literature and political institutions of the 
Umtcd States throughout Greece, and to encourage in 
America the study of the ancient and modern Hellenic 
language and hterature; and further to defend the just 
claims of Greece in particular and of Hellenism in 
general. 



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